What DID I just say!!!

Me:  You've had your shower!  Why have you got gravy on your face?  I hope you didn't put your head down and lie in your gravy!

Woody: (puts head down and lies in gravy)

Me:  I give up.

Now what did I just say?

Woody was sitting quietly at the bench, watching me grate cheese.  He had eaten the few little bits I had given him but I didn't want to spoil his appetite so I decided not to give him any more.

As I moved on to a new task, I placed the block of cheese on the bench in front of him, trusting him not to eat any.  He is quite trustworthy, in an erratic, two-year-old sort of way.

He looked at the cheese, but didn't make a move towards it.

"Wow Woody," I said to him after a pause.  "I really love that you're the sort of kid I can trust not to sink his teeth into that block of cheese right there."

Then Woody leaned forward, opened his mouth and went to sink his teeth deep into the block of cheese.

Sometimes, I think I am just giving him ideas.

The Inspiration Train to Platform Three has been delayed

I've been thinking recently that I have quite possibly ceased to be A Blogger. I've comfortably slipped into being A Lot Of Other Things instead, e.g., I've become more of a Mum, Mum-who-works, Mum-who-does-the-house, swimmer, poet, Sunday School teacher, babysitter, etc, etc, and also the unthinkable: A Person Who Goes To Bed Early.

I don't know about you, but I can't be both A Person Who goes To Bed Early and a Blogger.

But not only that, I used to think, "Wow, I could blog that" all the time where now I think, "I'm pretty sure I won't be able to summon the Care Factor necessary to blog that ..." and I don't.

Pathetic, hey?

Honestly, I blame Scrabble.  The Scrabble App on the iPad lures me the way that my blog used to lure me.  The main difference is when I get so tired that my eyeballs feel like they are about to fall out and roll away, I now switch off my iPad and go to sleep.  Back when I was a Blogger, that feeling would hit while I was in the study.  I'd think, "I'm probably too tired to walk to bed now.  If I stay here for ten more minutes, maybe the tiredness will go away."

And lo, a blog was born.  (Because the world needed more directionless blogs.)

So if you wonder where I am - I'm still alive.  I'm probably just wondering if I can get a Q word to start on a Double Letter tile and extend onto the Triple Word tile.

Or if I can get ZA and ZO horizontally and vertically simultaneously, with the common Z on a Triple Word tile.

Sad.

But here are my kids, yay:

(Dactyls)2

Thank goodness I don't rely on my writing for an income.  Sometimes, like the last fortnight, I just simply don't feel like writing.  I've preferred to read what all my friends are writing and leave a few comments, which has been much better than trying to squeeze something out onto my blog that didn't want to come.  It requires a lot of Intellectual Metamucil to digest the pleasant-but-mundane into something of interest to the General Reading Public.

For this reason, and also because of the repellent nature of the digestion-related metaphors above, I am glad I don't have ads on my blog.  Earning just enough to buy a packet of gum each quarter would be quite demoralising.  Instead, I prefer to treat my writings as "free for all, because you cannot put a price on art."  Then I laugh.

But I haven't been not writing.  I've been burying myself into a poetry project that I like to call "26 People I Have Known - an alphabetical double dactyl project."  Its title is a lie - none of the characters in my poems are real, although some are based on real events, e.g.,

C is for Caitlin

Crissety Crossety
Caitlin McCormack
Commanded her children
to fight and to vent.

Caitlin said, "Sure, it is
Counterintuitive,
But the compliance?
One hundred percent!"

My double dactyl on "F" was also based on real events and was written for Tracy, who requested a double dactyl including the word "fantasmagoria."

F is for Felicity

Frighteny Nighteny
Dear sweet Felicity
Called to her Mum on a
Dark stormy night.

Forecasting fearful
Fantasmagoria,
Mum realised "funder" just
Gave Flit a "fwight."


My favourite was "O." I found the cheeky ideas tumbled out after being convinced I never could find any topic that provided such potential around the letter O.  However.

O is for Ozzie

Obbledy Obbledy
Ozzie O'Sullivan
Though eighty-seven
Was darn good in bed.

Heart failure was this
Orgasmically-occupied
Octogenarian's
Downfall they said.

I was proud of that.  I don't know if I'll ever get to present it anywhere, not being sure if any audience is quite ready for Ozzie.

That was fun.  Now in lieu of a proper ending for this post, I'll just say good night as I'm off to get more sleep than my poor little cherubs allowed me last night.

Keep Out, and other writings

I love it when kids' written language skills get good enough that they take themselves off and write their thoughts.  Buzz started doing that earlier this year.  His first piece of writing made us so proud.  Our son, taking himself off and writing a commentary on life!  It was truly wonderful.  It read:

"I dont Lic you nAAw mum that you yeld at me and That you smacd me DAD"

Needless to say, we were both tremendously proud.  Since then, Buzz has filled the world with his writings, even going so far as you write a stern Instruction To Self regarding the self-administration of an asthma puffer during his recent struggle with an asthma-related cough.

"nat tace 2 pufs at forst bac and secnd do or no plae"  (Take 2 puffs at first break and second.  Do, or no play.)

And the most recent had me in stitches.  I walked past his door the other night and saw this stern warning to all:

"Keep out.  Privacy.  No enter.  Snakes."

...

That's enough to keep me out.

Ass. U. Me.

Scene One:  Buzz's classroom, Monday morning before Sports Day.

Me: Hi Jen!  Have you heard much about Sports Day?
Jen: Not much.  Hey, is Buzz in Evans House?
Me: Yeah, sure, he's in Evans.  And Elijah is too, isn't he?  I remember because we lent him a yellow shirt last year on Sports Day.
Jen: Oh, that's right, you did.  He's okay this year - he has a yellow shirt this time.
Me: Cool then.  Well, Go Evans, hey?
Jen: Yeah, Go Evans!  See you on Wednesday!


Scene Two:  In car, killing time after postponing a swim on finding the swimming pool full of older women doing aqua-aerobics.

Me, to self: Hmm, actually Buzz doesn't have a yellow shirt.  I wonder if I should get one before Wednesday.  I wonder which shirt he wore last year?  I can't even remember what he wore last year.  He must have had that old long-sleeved yellow shirt.  Huh.  Well I'd better pop in somewhere and buy him a new yellow shirt.


Scene Three:  Home

Me:  Hey guess what?
Mr de Elba: What?
Me: I was talking to Jen this morning about Sports Day and when I mentioned that I'd lent Elijah a yellow shirt last year, I realised that Buzz doesn't have one for this year.  So I just got this great yellow polo shirt for Buzz!  It was only $9.00!  Would it be funny or kitsch if I put lettering on the back with Buzz's name?  Glad I thought of it actually.  It would have been bad if we'd got to Wednesday morning and he didn't have a yellow shirt to wear, being in Evans House.
Mr de Elba:  Rudd.  Red.  Buzz is in Rudd House.

- pause -

Me: Uh, yeah.  So he is.  Rudd.


Moral:  Just because you lent someone a yellow shirt doesn't mean your own kid is in Evans.  Ass.  U.  Me.

Four lines of silliness

Lost

I used to have a toothbrush
‘Twas coloured bright lime green
I saw it last I brushed my teeth
But now it can't be seen.

(Just in case you thought I was going all posh and poetic on you.)

Double Dactyl

The Double Dactyl - what a cool poetic form!  I was made aware of double dactyls by the lovely Cath at The Picket Fence, who admitted that it sounded like a strange sort of dinosaur, which is what I'd been secretly thinking myself.

The rules of a double dactyl were difficult for me to grasp:

• dactylic meter, meaning that the 'feet' are made up of three syllables in a 'strong-weak-weak' pattern
• two verses of four lines each, each line having two of these dactylic feet (although the fourth and eighth lines usually have one dactyl followed by a single stressed syllable ... once you've understood this pattern of syllables, it's a piece of cake, I promise)
• the first line of the poem is a rhyming nonsense phrase - the hardest part for me, as I am just not that into writing nonsense phrases
• the second line is a name
• one of the lines in the second verse is a six-syllable word, and Cath kindly sent me a list of 1,500 six syllable words to choose from  Some poets add a rule that no single six-syllable word, once used in a double dactyl, should ever be knowingly used again.
• the ends of each verse rhyme, and the whole thing is usually humourous.

That's a lot to take in, but once you've read a few double dactyls, you get an 'Aha!' moment and understand the structure.

My friend Cath posted a double dactyl written by her friend, poet Will Mackerras.  Will's poetry blog, The Banjo Bible, is well worth a read and it includes a few superb double dactyls.  Read Cath's own double dactyl, which came with a short lesson in art appreciation.  Both were brilliant!

I wrote my first double dactyl in the comments on my sister's blog in her recent poetry posts while I was sleeping in the dorm at the campsite where we had our recent beach holiday.  When I came home, I realised another whole double dactyl was needed to fully explain my plight (as if a 2kg gain on the scales wasn't explanation enough.)

Does this make it a Quadruple Dactyl?  I am not sure.

Camp Food – Two Double Dactyls

Holey Kamoley
At Seabreeze Apartments
The weather was wondrous,
The cabins were close.

But I'll be needing some
Anticoagulants -
Though they did feed us,
The food was quite gross.

 - - - - - - - - -

Yuckity Pyuckity!

“Week-long camp nourishment”:

Mass-produced, deep-fried stuff,

Battered or canned. 

Cholesterol-laden with

Oil spots on napkins! Such

Inedibility!

This should be banned.

 - - - - - - - - -

(The name of the campsite, although dactylic, needed to be replaced with a fictitious campsite name.)

How much fun was that?  Not the eating the food, writing the poem!  I know you're itching to give it a try, so here is an A-Z of hopefullypromising six-syllable words, hand-picked from my list of 1,500.  This list is without an x-word.  A six-syllable dactylic x-word.  Sigh.  Clearly, that was too much to ask.

Antibacterial

Bibliomania

Characteristically

Disciplinarian

Extemporaneous

Fantasmagoria

Germanophobia

Horizontality

Impossibility

Juxtapositional

Lexicological

Megalomaniac

Nonsensibility

Octogenarian

Psychoanalysis

Quasiequivalent

Reputability

Sentimentality

Transmississippian

Unreproducible

Veterinarian

Weatherability

Yerwamaiduguri

Zoogeography

This poetic form is growing on me.  I particularly love feeling the cantering meter and then getting flattened with a six-syllable word of sheer brilliance!  I haven't mastered that yet, but I'm going to enjoy trying!

Villanelle

I wanted to write a Villanelle.  This was crazy.  I'm embarrassed to post it because it's not really a 'performance piece.'

The Villanelle has a tricky pattern of rhyme and repetition.  It has 19 lines and really, you could predict that nothing good comes in 19 lines.  People who know their poetry 'schematise' a Villanelle thus:

A¹bA²  -  abA¹  -  abA²  -  abA¹  -  abA²  -  abA¹A²

where 'a' and 'b' are the two different rhyme endings used, and where A¹ and A² are the two different refrains.

I read that most modern Villanelles are in pentameter, and I tried for iambic because some of the phrases I wanted to use fell into iambs.  I took the liberty of varying the refrains a little bit each time, which I think is called 'breaking the rules'.  I'm not sure whether it's a winner or not.


Girl Collecting Shells

Collecting shells is every girl's delight
To her dismay, her parents will forbid it.
Her parents say they know that crabs can bite.

Mum and Dad said, "Leave the shells, alright?"
But this young girl, she went ahead and did it.
Collecting shells is this sweet girl's delight.

She found a beauty, large and smooth and white
Buried in the sand which almost hid it.
Her parents warned they know that crabs can bite.

She picked it up and held her treasure tight.
What parent would so callously forbid it?
Collecting shells is this sweet girl's delight.

Predictably, this girl received a fright
When learning that an angry crab lived in it!
It's customary for crabs to give a bite.

She screamed "It bit me!" moaning in her plight!
She dropped the frightened crab and madly skidded!
Collecting shells once was this girl's delight,
But now of course, she knows that crabs can bite.

Circular Sleep-Wake Haiku

If I know where this vicious circle started, I might be able to stop it.