Reading Journal: The List

This could be dangerous, but...it's a reading list. My bajillionth one. I actually have a spreadsheet so I can sort it by title, author and category (see list below). There's also a place for me to document the last time I read it. However, said spreadsheet is on Lucy, who is currently in a coma. And since I can't find a spreadsheet program on this computer, the blog gets stuck hosting the list. I try following a memorable pattern; otherwise, I'll get caught reading the same kinds of things for too long. I've done pretty well with this one:

• Something old (classic, something from the canon)



• Something new (less than 3 years)



• Something borrowed, reccomended or random



• Something true (not fiction)

I try to read only one at a time, since I seem to read them faster that way. But every once in a while I sign myself up for something that gets dry or tedious. (10 months for Canterbury Tales, I think.) And by the time it's made me bored with reading in general, I feel I've invested too much time to just abandon it, so I start something else. Another reading rule I have comes at the suggestion of a Reader's Digest article: if it doesn't hold interest after 50 pages, ditch it. (Once you're 50, cut a page for every year. So once you're 60, only read 40 pages.)

Since I have it in mind to read everything filling up my bookcases (excepting textbooks and other general reference) as well as all of the books listed in "The Book of Great Books" by W. John Campbell, I'll save the huff and puff of typing those titles out. And since they pretty much work together filling up the next few rotations of the Old, Random, and True, I guess that just leaves me to go for the New, huh?

New"Freedom Writers"
"Draglines" by Pat Hicks
"Reading History at Lunch" by Chase Hart
"The Greatest Virtue" by Pat Robertson

Next CycleOld: "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
New: "Draglines"
Random: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
True: "Six Hours One Friday" by Max Lucado

My goal is to be on the last leg of this cycle by Easter, which is approximately 32 days from now.
Guess I'd better stop blogging and start reading, huh?

Writing Journal (Day Eight)

Well, I got to that poem about the escalator I talked about the other day.
The analogy my friend gave was this: "Life is like going up a down escalator; if you're not running up, you're riding down." And, who knows? Maybe those words are more poetic than today's poem.

Up the Down
I’m so very weary,
For this illusion is killing me.
There is no wear that this place shows.
Nor is there place where these stairs go.
I’m just climbing up and climbing up
As these gridiron lines
Slide beneath me.

It seems like these steps
Should be moving faster,
Picking up the pace.
But they don’t.
They just continue on,
And on and on and on and on.

Never slowing,
Never stopping,
Never will I reach the top.
Never will I allow myself to reach the bottom.

Writing Journal (Day Seven)

Last night, during the FHE lesson, a poem was read that had some imagery that really struck me. I liked it; it was semi-unconventional. I'm working on getting a copy of the poem for my personal collection. It reminded me of one of my favorite images that someone gave one time about life being an escalator. I woke up still thinking about it, so I'm going to try and make today's poem about that.

(Update)
So the escaltor thing never got developed; maybe some other day.

Instead, I managed to come up with two things. One is barely considered crap and the other is too short; maybe I'll flesh it out someday. I lost where I was going with it.

Those Two
I worry that he'll be a dick
And leave her with their baby
In their house
For no place with no job.

I wish that I could take him in
And make him want to change.

It's sad to see her see
She's lost the power
I know she never had.

Poor sir (almost),
We all wish
She wasn't pregnant anymore:
You just had the balls to say it to her face.

______________________________
Those Two
Their bodies made a pup tent,
Their hands, they slept inside.
There was no place for them to run
Nor was there peace to find.

Writing Journal (Day Six)

I was having some trouble with inspiration for today's. I tried figuring out which sense of mine was at it's peak, but couldn't come up with one. Did I want to write about what I saw? What I heard? What I felt (physically, as in with my fingers)? I was just having the hardest time finding something to notice!

After my break (where I had tried to work on the poem), I was talking with my crew-mates. Tab and I ended up talking about rap. Got me thinking back to the rap stage in my writing during high school. Very brief. But I asked around: what is something that a rapper wouldn't rap about? Because that's precisely what I wanted to "rap" about.

The answer I came up with: Trivial Pursuit.

I was going to come home after FHE, go down to the library and bust out my Genus Edition of the game and go to town. But when I got home, I got distracted by Maggie and Jay's Headlines and then the two movies that we watched before I went to bed....
So I struggled with this one, again about my younger years.

One of my goals for Wednesday (since I've effectually grounded myself until Institute) is to go through the poems I've forced out and see if I can't find something to work with here.


Echoes of the Past
Echoes of the past come back
To haunt me in my dreams.
Through the three-tiered windows,
I am taken back to a younger self,
Legs dangling out the middle
As I devise ways to sneak
In and back out when I was older.

I tried to be rebellious,
But I saw how that turned out:
No one home to know if I'd been a fool.
Even at my worst,
I never was that bad.

A lump on a log,
A knot in your throat;
You never did tell me
What it was all about.

Writing Journal (Day Five)

Again another below-par poem for today. But, hey, the challenge issued was for one poem a day, not one good poem a day. Crappy title included.

Inspired by my wondering about my teenaged spiritual life (and lack thereof). I'm not even going to consider it good enough to be cliche.

What if...
What if I had done more-
What if I had finished?
Would someone there have seen the light?
Could someone else have chosen right?

The people in the dark are falling,
Calling for someone to save them.
How I wish I could.
But if I cannot be their savior,
I pray for someone to be sent in my stead.