home, down, reviewed

family visit earlier this week, from sunday afternoon until tuesday afternoon, i had not been home in ages. my granny is doing well, although she is beginning to forget things, so it happens that she asks the same thing twice. we had a little chat on tuesday morning which was nice. spent some time with "little" brother martin, too, who is about to start working on his master's thesis. went shopping, martin doing what i would say is sepp's job, coming along and waiting patiently until i have tried on approximately 27 pairs of boots. but i bought two in the end. pairs, that is, not boots.

taught english on thursday, only four students there, but it was a good lesson. i was tongue-tied in swedish though, really embarrassing. i did not seem to be able to switch from english to swedish, maybe because i had spent the afternoon/evening chatting with paula (in english) and reading "the no.1 ladies' detective agency" (in english), and then teaching english. who knows.

spent wednesday waiting for the plumber who never showed up. why do they do these things? it's ridiculous. anyway, they did come yesterday morning. we had a very pleasant evening scratching silicone from seams around the bathtub, and then filling them again (sepp's job, and a very messy one at that). the smell of the stuff is appalling.

my blog site would not work yesterday - it showed the header and then a bit of code, and that was it. i had not even touched the templates! i was mighty pissed off. sent email to the helpdesk, but they don't really send out anything but standard replies. anyway, i fixed it myself this morning by setting up a new blog and copying the code from there, but i had to type out and find, copy and paste all the links again, which took me the best part of 2 hours. but there are even more music links now. and i have saved the code, just in case this happens again. not many poetry links yet, but they will follow some day. there are a few on my website, but i am pretty sure some of them no longer work. fast-paced world, this one. (not that i know many others.)

a very nice surprise yesterday came from cheryl snell, a poet i know. she sent the draft of a review of my chapbook "apples for adam", asking if i'd mind her publishing that, and whether i had anything to say i wanted included in the review. you can read the review online now. thanks cheryl! (and now go and get her book "epithalamion" which is wonderful!)

excerpt from the review:

Almost any woman can recognize herself in Michaela Gabriel’s first chapbook, “apples for adam”. In these eighteen poems, many written in an intimate, confessional tone, the author explores the female psyche. With an economy of words, intricately woven textures bring each scene and portrait of modern and mythological women to life. [...]
(cheryl snell)

new music! reading derstandard.at is always dangerous, because i am sure to come across reviews of music that i find interesting, and then i have to go and check it out, and then i like it, and have to get it ...

song of the day yesterday: song of the shrimp, frank black. too cute.
song of the day today: what did i ever give you?, the kaiser chiefs. gotta love it.