tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53950542011-04-22T00:36:50.647-05:00Whisper the Muse AlivePractice makes perfect :) MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.comBlogger311100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1137215061061262122006-01-13T22:57:00.000-06:002006-01-13T23:04:21.070-06:00One Semester of blogging silence + One semester of writing thesis - still recovering from the summer of undiagnosed mono, multiplied by my contract at work not being renewed and no raise for me completing my master's degree =A useless M.A. in English, an unwillingness to work at unrewarding job, and an overall feeling of desperation which is not being cured by my glass of white zin, the friends MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1124943670382928022005-08-24T23:07:00.000-05:002005-08-24T23:21:10.386-05:00Well, in case you were wondering (and even if you didn't give a hoot) why I haven't posted for a while, I am going to give my heath as an excuse: I have mono. The kissing disease. Which doesn't make any sense because the only person I've been kissing on for years is Scott, and he doesn't seem to have it (he hasn't had his bloodwork done yet thought). Right now the joke with my friends here is MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1123106942227964222005-08-03T16:48:00.000-05:002005-08-10T16:04:43.613-05:00I just read an awesome children's book while I was at work in the library: "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble," by William Steig.First of all, "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" is a story about a donkey family and their little son donkey Sylvester. How cool is that? Not the normal choice for a main character. Anywho, Sylvester finds a magic pebble that makes his wishes come true, but then he makes a MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1122955362108650332005-08-01T22:57:00.000-05:002005-08-01T23:02:42.113-05:00I'm addicted to ice cream. I'm serious.If any of you have read my husband's blog, hardcorepoetic, then you know that life isn't comepletely rosy and good for me and him right now. I really wanted to keep my blog from becoming a vomitorium for me to upchuck onto the page - I had hopes of doing book reviews or something important with this creative outlet - but hell, my life just isn't that clean MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1122441309931420212005-07-26T23:22:00.000-05:002005-07-27T00:28:55.263-05:00lI have my first practice blisters from trying to play violin, so I'm two fingers short while typing. But I'm proud of myself. "Amazing Grace" still sounds like a cat sliding down a chalkboard set right next to my left eardrum, but at least the tune is distinguishable. I've had three lessons so far, and I only got the violin during Cornerstone. That is a story in of itself! I never thought that MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1121745824845764152005-07-18T22:35:00.000-05:002005-07-18T23:03:44.850-05:00Today I started working on my master's thesis again. I haven't touched it since I started the Latin class from hell in May. Not Latin as in Latin America, but Latin as in "Nos bibamus multa sena vinum" (translated, "We drink many aged wines."). Well, the class ended July 1, I survived it, and now I have to change gears again to work with slow, meandering nineteenth century American literature.Ah,MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1121124153040793602005-07-11T17:55:00.000-05:002005-07-11T18:22:33.050-05:00 So, this is me: I work at a college library. Actually, I bear the official title of "Archives Coordinator," and I work in the institutional archives associated with the library. But today I am sitting at the library's circulation desk waiting for phantom patrons to materialize and vanish before I lock the doors at 7:30. It has been a slow shift to this point. Ah, someone just entered, but he MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1116544630959954632005-05-19T18:20:00.000-05:002005-05-19T18:17:10.963-05:00Why do we think that an 8-hour work day is necessary? Why can't people be allowed to work until they get a few projects done or meet a certain production quota and then be allowed to go home?I feel trapped when I'm at work for 8 hours straight. The only thing that helps me to keep my sanity is the fact that I get a small paid lunch break, which I usually use to leave my office and breathe MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1106688129489827342005-01-25T15:21:00.000-06:002005-01-25T21:34:15.920-06:00A short short... The Gift of a Babe
“This is for you!” I turned in my chair to see Tom, my little 4-year old brother thrust out a package toward me. It looked like a misshapen cucumber with crumpled and bumpy green tissue paper and copious amounts of green ribbon crisscrossing its stubby length.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s your birthday present.” He pushed it into my hands and waited.
I knewMetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1106619078311010192005-01-17T18:08:00.000-06:002005-01-24T20:11:18.310-06:00Oh Lord, this world makes your children cry
Oh Lord, this world makes your children cry
Sally’s mother used to sing while she picked cotton
in the lonely field of Oklahoma.
She picked cotton the day before Sally was born
and was back in the fields a day after,
the newborn nearby with a cousin in the shade.
As Sally got older, she would sing with her mother,
listening to her voice drift through MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1080277435600301762004-03-25T23:03:00.000-06:002004-03-25T23:07:20.560-06:00Someone on my radio sings
"The world is getting better all the time..." as I drive up the hill into town
and begin braking down to five over the posted limit. I argue
with the drugs running through my head
"The world is dying all the time."
Perhaps it's just the pain meds kicking in,
making me curse the traffic I'm afraid of driving in
with my hands white-melted to the wheel
because some SOB MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1079890377707676862004-03-21T11:32:00.000-06:002004-03-21T11:36:54.076-06:00Yeah, my posts are few and far between... get over it. :)
I'm typing as Scott snores through his nap in my bed. He's been taking care of me this week because I was in a car accident on Monday the 15th. The van I was driving was rear-ended, and I was given whiplash (muscle spasms) and neck trauma (my neck vertebrae are lined up straight instead of forming the natural curve).
I was so sore and MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1077995548176816622004-02-28T13:12:00.000-06:002004-02-28T13:15:57.513-06:00So I'm working in the library all weekend and wishing I was in bed next napping with my Scotty. Sigh. Sucks to be a working stiff sometimes. However, at least at work today I can blog--I'm working the reference desk in the library, and we all know how much help college students need with their homework on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Lately I've been feeling the itch. No, not chiggers and MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1076300696185881162004-02-08T22:24:00.000-06:002004-02-08T22:27:20.076-06:00So, life continues... I'm working 40+ hours a week, commutting to Fayetteville three days a week to take 6 hours in the graduate English program, and I'm planning my wedding. As long as I keep up on the homework, I'll be doing well :) Classes are becoming really time-consuming, but I'm enjoying them for the most part. Mostly though, I'm enjoying my hubby-to-be Scott. He makes my days bearable MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1074029927944451262004-01-13T15:38:00.000-06:002004-01-13T15:40:37.013-06:00Today I sat in my first class of my second semester at graduate school. The professor is very uncouth: he managed to insult half of the class, mock and knock down Arkansas, democracy, high school teachers, women, poultry families, and the south in general. He also changed all but one book on his book list, so many students in class had purchased the wrong set of books. He uses the word "egads" MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1067112963012182092003-10-25T15:16:00.000-05:002003-10-25T15:16:06.013-05:00OK, so it's been a while. The good news is that Blogger doesn't delete your account like Hotmail does.
I'm at a business building that a few friends rent, waiting for a D&D Forgotten Realms campaign to start in the back room. Yes, my eternal spirit is about to become corrupted with magic missiles, spellcaster checks, and general carnage as we tear apart all the evil beings the DM (dungeon MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1063323004109277252003-09-11T18:30:00.000-05:002003-09-11T18:30:04.066-05:00Life is very full for me right now.
I never knew that working 40 hours a week, doing six hours of graduate work, and commuting an hour each way to school would drain me so much. But I am happy. The love of my life has returned to me from Chicago, hopefully to stay--I have a car, a house, a job, graduate classes in a subject I enjoy, loans in deferment, friends, and love.
So, even though the MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1061499697531514912003-08-21T16:01:00.000-05:002003-08-21T16:04:46.813-05:00Ah, well... my mom is OK. She was in the hospital for ten days. The doctors couldn't figure out what was causing her to be sick, so after they stabilized her, they sent her home with an IV shunt thingie stuck in her hand so she could continue to give herself megadoses of antibiotics for another seven days. But we now now what it is... West Nile!
My mom found out on Tuesday, the 19th, and now MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1060300680954991302003-08-07T18:58:00.000-05:002003-08-07T18:59:36.786-05:00A short observation I've made:
Email forwards are the fruitcake of the Internet.
Most people throw it away,
Some keep it, but never open it,
And a few reuse it to pretend they care.
MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1060229928030464462003-08-06T23:18:00.000-05:002003-08-06T23:20:35.416-05:00With my mom sick, I'm finding out it's hard to wait for news... the news of whether she'll live or die, make a full recovery or be left with some disabling attribute I'll have to pretend not to notice. Since I live several states away from my family, I am physically separated from the emotional tornado that is raging at home, yet I get a taste of the storm in short-burst phone conversations withMetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1060056165183021702003-08-04T23:02:00.000-05:002003-08-06T23:33:15.856-05:00My mom is in the hospital tonight. The doctors think she has bacterial meningitis, but they won't know for sure until the test results come in tomorrow evening.
My mom is a post office employee. The symptoms started a week ago Sunday, but since then she has worked, gone shopping, picked up my dad at his job in another town, and was in the delivery room with my sister and her newborn Wednesday. MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1059773943142397282003-08-01T16:39:00.000-05:002003-08-01T16:41:36.633-05:00the feel of water on finger tips
in the shower
cupping my hands in supplication
toward the
raining needles
create tingling pricks
along my digits.
the water flows through my palms
hitting the crease on my chest and
sliding down
to rest at the feet,
the full body senses
water falls on toes
swimming in lakes like fish
MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1059251028762795232003-07-26T15:23:00.000-05:002003-07-26T15:23:48.716-05:00One Saturday in the life of a monkey....
Today, I drove around the countryside of Arkansas with a ninety-one year old man for 4 hours. We went to the miniature tourist trap called Appletown, bought a bushel of peaches picked suppossedly this morning, and ate BBQ at a dive called Penguin Ed's where you order your meal at a pinkish orange phone hanging on the wall of your booth. There were MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1059013158675139732003-07-23T21:19:00.000-05:002003-07-23T21:19:18.670-05:00Who would have thought a muse would make friends with an aardvark? Strange things exist in the world, and stranger things will come.
MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1058823881460037812003-07-21T16:44:00.000-05:002003-07-21T16:44:41.430-05:00Ah, a week long absence, but one well spent. My writing has been in a dry spell for a few months now. I thought I'd be stuck having to say, "Once I wrote bad poetry, but now I don't write at all," for the rest of my year.
But not so. I have been calling to the muse, letting her flow through my meager fingers into the Word documents littering my computer desktop. Not sure how long or what the MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1058304637184441402003-07-15T16:30:00.000-05:002003-07-15T16:30:37.160-05:00Those who pick blackberries do not eat only meat, but are eaten by the meat eaters. Damn chiggers!MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1058067478237035572003-07-12T22:37:00.000-05:002003-07-12T22:37:58.223-05:00Quote of the day (because I feel like it):
"I was one of Them: the Strange Ones. The Funny People. The Odd Tribes of autograph collectors and photographers. The Ones who waited through long days and nights, who used other people's dreams for their lives."
--Ray Bradbury (1920 - )
MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-105795926548302732003-07-11T16:34:00.000-05:002003-07-11T16:34:25.383-05:00Ever have one of those days where you're looking back over the stuff you've written and you notice that your muse forgot to wipe his or her ass? All you see is crap everywhere. MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1057796190074838732003-07-09T19:16:00.000-05:002003-07-09T19:16:30.070-05:00Check out the band Brave Saint Saturn - they aren't from Uranus, but they are emo! MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-1057794428819985522003-07-09T18:47:00.000-05:002003-07-09T19:18:59.983-05:00After a wonderfully informative seminar on Blogging held at Cornerstone, I decided that it was time to give my page a facelift. Hope you enjoy it. MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395054.post-943663442003-05-14T22:04:00.000-05:002003-07-10T18:56:06.056-05:00Here are some ideas for jump-starting the creative juices:
1. Make a list of five writing goals.
2. If you could take an all-expense paid trip for one night to anywhere in the world, where would you choose?
3. Next time your walking the dogs around the neighborhood, take mental notes of the thoughts that cross your mind. When you return, recap the walk in writing.
4. When was the last time MetalMonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02517372605693716138noreply@blogger.com0