waiting, writing, ranting

okay. we've had plumbers, we've had chimney-sweeps. this week it was the postman i was not happy about. i'd been waiting for three books from amazon - the stupid ?*@! idiot of a postman seriously just left the parcel on my doorstep! i would not believe my (drunkard) neighbour last week when he said "have you got the package alright that the postman left here?" i asked "where?" and he said, "ah, he just put it there, on your doorstep". and i thought, nah, he probably wrote out the note for me to pick up the package at the post office, and may have put the package down for a moment. but when i did not find a note in my mailbox when checking earlier this week while i was at my place, i became a bit suspicious. i thought i could always ask the other neighbours, frau rausch and her sons (yes, she of the poem!), and they did indeed have the package - but not because the postman left it with them, no, because one of the sons picked it up outside my door so nobody would steal it! isn't that nice? i called the post office and told them i would be very happy if they did not just leave my things lying around in the hall. the guy on the other end of the line actually agreed with me that this was indeed not supposed to happen. i'm just glad that nobody made off with my new books!

got jasper fforde's the big over easy (now how to stay away from it until i have finished the vikram chandra novel?), making love by marius brill, and something naughty but cute: colleen coover's little favours, vol 1. :)


more ranting: editors! editors of magazines that promise replies within a certain time and never even say peep! i am especially pissed off with the editors of one e-zine who promise a response time of 6-8 weeks, and who, 5 months later, still have not reacted to my submissions nor to either of my two inquiries. and no, the magazine is not on hiatus, one issue has been published in the meantime, another is coming up. one print zine and another e-zine have not replied to my submissions of mid-october though they promise response times of 3 months max. inquiries have gone unanswered so far. i guess i will just regard the poems as no longer under consideration, what do you think?

i need to check out some more magazines that people have recommended, and submit submit submit.

day 12 of the 30/30 and today was the first tough day. i fought with the muse, and i won. yay! the result is another poem in my growing series of conversations with all sorts of kitchen utensils. i think i should watch it, folks, because i am slowly beginning to hear voices in my kitchen ...

here are a couple of excerpts from
conversation with a stainless steel wire whisk

depilation was the first word i heard on the train; the dingy orange / seat wheezed it out in large brown letters every time i crossed my legs.

...

announcements were made in running colours, particularly a wet cobalt / with puckered lips that went after every man exuding erotic competence.

i always thought lapis lazuli would complement my complexion. / just my luck that the great eggbeater in the sky vetoed blue foodstuffs.

yeah. i know.

am waiting for ms ang to answer the 26 questions in alphabetical order that i sent a few days ago. it's a kind of collaboration of the crazies.

i'm rediscovering stina nordenstam, the shy swedish singer. her from cayman islands with love is my song of the day (or night, as my clock tells me, unemotionally, that it's 01.49am).