back in the vienna groove ...

... or not quite. but - back we are. though i don't think i want to be. bit tired today, as i slept less than 5 hours last night - we stayed up late with our friends near graz. the weather was appalling when we got back to vienna with good old sir archibald bartholomew chesterfield flanagan (our rental car, you've got to have some style, don't you) - cold and rainy, though the sun is shining now. the plants on the balcony are thriving, it seems. there are about 15 tomatoes waiting to be eaten with mozzarella and basil tonight!

i am immensely proud of myself for not being tempted to seek out internet shops during the trip, and for not feeling the need to enter when we happened to pass one. anyway, i still wish that the first email i read at home had contained better news - the class i was supposed to teach next week had to be cancelled, which means five weeks without any income, which is a bit tough.

there'll be lots of travel pics and texts of our 18 days out there (not quite doing all of what we had intended or vaguely planned to do, but that's alright) over the next days and weeks. no poems though, i did not get around to writing one line.

you'll be pleased to see that i occasionally got something to eat along the, well, way:



i hope all's well with everyone. i'll stop by your blogs asap.

=====

AHHH but i HAD TO edit this first post-holiday note and add the GOOD news i received a little later this afternoon:

all five poems i submitted to wicked alice for their all alice issue have been accepted - the new issue is scheduled to be published in the second half of september.

and the hiss quarterly editors have informed me that my poem solitaire, published in their nc-17 issue, has been nominated for inclusion in sundress press' best of the net anthology.

so, double YAY! :)

song of the day: ace frehley - new york groove

so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

yesss! i finished round 6 of 30/30 (a poem a day) today! i honestly did not expect to make it this time, it was a bit tough at times. most of the poems were part of the greek letter series, with a few haiga / photo-poems thrown in on days when nothing else would come.

that series, the secret meanings of greek letters, is now done, too. i wrote the 24th poem, omega, this afternoon. now some revisions are in order, and then i'll try and find a publisher for a chapbook.

the secret meanings of greek letters: omega (Ω ω)

an eye looks down at the earth. six days pass,
tall trees shed their cloaks, a creek mates
with cold air, withdraws beneath thin ice.

a hand points at a puzzle. two prayers form
on untrained lips: one for the missing piece,
one for protection from all things complete.

toes draw in wet sand: seven circles, seven
sheep staring out to sea. its lopsided face gives
nothing away, its mouth won't speak of graves.

an eye looks up at the sky. it says to you, in
a language of shadow and light: there will be
no darkness behind a door closed until dawn.

this is the last blog entry for a while. sepp and i are picking up our rental car tomorrow around 1pm and driving south. the weather - which has been horrible since that heatwave ended - seems to be improving. we'll stop at my parents' tomorrow and take it from there. the plan is to conquer a few mountains in the area (carinthia, salzburg, east tyrol) and visit our friend alex in south tyrol, and manfred and his family near graz on our way back. if the weather is no good, we will drive south to croatia. we'll be back on 31 august, and i'm sure there will be a few stories to tell and some pictures to share.

have a great time, i hope the sun will shine for you!

song of the day: suzanne vega - tom's diner

53 things you never wanted to know about me

this'll give you something to read over the next three weeks while i am (mostly) away. feel free to copy it. the questions, that is.

1.Where did you take your default pic?
in sepp's study

2.What exactly are you wearing right now?
interestingly enough, clothes! no socks though.

3.What is your current problem?
feeling blaaaaaah, when my holidays have just started :(

4.What makes you most happy?
life. it also makes me most sad.

5.What's the name of the song that you're listening to?
elisabeth schwarzkopf's version of "meine lippen, sie kuessen so heiss" from "giuditta"
later: "absent friends" by the divine comedy
later still: "blue eyes crying in the rain" by carla bozulich
and then: "portions for foxes" by rilo kiley

7.Name someone with the same birthday as you?
bjork (yessss!). goldie hawn. jena malone (from "donnie darko"). voltaire. rené magritte. arthur quiller-couch. my old classmate christoph "kulti" kulterer.

8.Ever sang in front of a large audience?
do i look like i want to commit suicide by having tomatoes thrown at me?
that one time two guys dragged me onstage at a karaoke in queensland to sing "when i'm 64" won't do as an answer. that audience was not large, even before we started singing.

9. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
a friend's daughter once found i looked a tiny little bit like pink. though her father instantly disagreed.

10.Do you still watch kiddy movies or kiddie TV shows?
oh yes! wickie. die sendung mit der maus. shrek! i love shrek! monsters inc!

11.Do you speak any other languages?
english. the french and italian i still remember. basic dutch and swedish. some japanese, though not much is left. some leftover latin. though i don't use that often.

12.Has anyone you've been really close with passed away?
hmmm … the closest – my great-uncle pepi who spent a lot of time with me when i was a kid. he was closer to me than my paternal grandfather or maternal grandmother.

13.Do you ever watch MTV?
no. though i used to in the eighties.

14.What's something that really annoys you?
how long have you got? people who think they know everything and fail to realise that they share the planet with other human beings, that would be one thing that comes to mind today, for a reason.
and people biting their fingernails! ugh!

Chapter 1:

1.name:
michaela andrea gabriel

2.Nickname:
michi, moonie, miss m, miss moon. little moon (reserved for my friend teresa).

3.Current location:
vienna

4.Eye color:
check the profile pic! ;)

Chapter: 2

1.Do you live with your parents:
heavens, no!

2.Do you get along with your parent(s):
yes though we could be closer. i regret that sometimes, that we are not.

3. Are your parents married/seperated/divorced:
married

4. Do you have any siblings:
martin (23) and markus (nearly 31)

Chapter 3: Favorites

1. IceCream:
tichy's chocolate ice cream, fiocco, malaga (that is rum'n'raisin for you non-austrians)

2.Season:
autumn, unless it is constantly raining. nothing beats the light on a beautiful october afternoon.

3.Shampoo/conditioner:
jumping juniper shampoo bar from lush!

Chapter 4: Do You..

1.Dance in the shower
you mean there are people who actually DO that?? jeez. how many of them end up in casualty?

2.Write on your hand:
no

3.Call people back:
yes, i usually do

4.Believe in love:
yes

5.Sleep on a certain side of the bed:
right side

6.Have Any Bad habits:
what are bad habits? letting the answer machine click on to hear who is calling? *L*

Chapter 5: Have You...

1. Broken a bone:
no, never.

2. Had surgery:
appendix

3.Had physical therapy:
only massages

4.Gotten stitches:
yes. on my forehead. because an overly enthusiastic classmate accidentally hit me with a table tennis bat.

5.Taken painkillers:
yes. after i had that tooth "dug out" last year.

6.Gone SCUBA diving or snorkeling:
snorkelling in fiji, tonga, canada, possibly somewhere else

8.Thrown up at the dentist:
why would i want to do that? *L*
my granny did though when she was pregnant. she warned him. he laughed. then he didn't.

9.Sworn in front of your parents:
yep. they don't like it too much though.

10.Had detention:
no

11.Been sent to the principal's office:
no

12.Been called a ho:
not to my face

Chaper 6: Who/What was the last

1.Movie(s) you saw:
donnie darko

2.Person to text you:
ummm … mum i think.

3.Person to call you?:
sepp

4.Person who hugged you:
sepp

5.Person you tackled:
that guy who tried to jump the queue at the bakery today …
just kidding

6.Thing you touched:
mouse / keyboard; apart from that, my teacup

7.Thing you ate:
a pepper from our balcony!

8.Thing you drank:
tea

9.Thing you said:
oh dear ... what was the last thing i said to sepp … can't remember. possibly something like "you poor thing", because his back is aching

10.Friends you could trust with anything:
gudrun, rachael, lotta, birgit

11.Friends you miss the most that have moved:
alex;my other friends have not moved away
of those who live in other countries: rachael and lotta


song of the day: rilo kiley - portions for foxes

boys seldom make passes ...

... at girls who wear glasses. which is why i usually wear contacts. especially because my old glasses were, well, old. ancient. remnants of a long-forgotten era. i wouldn't have wanted to be caught wearing them by anybody, really, except sepp, but he has seen me hundreds of times right after waking up, so he isn't easily shocked.

anyway - i need not hide any longer (i think). i finally got my new pair of specs today! i had always wanted a black plastic frame, and had also always thought that would not suit me. i think i was wrong. anyway, see for yourself.



song of the day: martha wainwright - GPT

how the other half blogs

arlene has to deal with latin, er, lechers. thank goodness she already learned how to read the signs.

sarah is back from her holiday and brought us musings about mousolion hair.

sharon is dreaming at midnight, like a good girl should.

allen has got poetry, and allen has got clouds. perhaps he wants some of our rain?

nathan is making enemies of people over 30, and promoting poetry.

collin is on the move.

pris is writing poetry in an ocean of clouds.

ros is having disturbing dreams.

sam is working with what is given, and doing it well.

song of the day: richard hawley - can you hear the rain, love? -- oh yes.

glorious carrotbasiltomatopepper hair

this is glorious:



this (from our "garden") ended up in our sauce this afternoon:



this is me, well, kind of. having my hair henna-ed.



song of the day: jim white - that girl from brownsville

an insane centrifugal hiss

some of you already heard, but still: i have some poems in the new issues of the hiss quarterly (which, if you don't know that already, is one hell of a zine!) and centrifugal eye.

the poems in this issue of hiss (insanity is a one-trick pony) are all part of some series i have been working on -

conversation with an aluminum ladle (part of the conversations series)
what the therapist doesn't say to alice (part of the alice in therapy series)
Digby's Soliloquy (part of the infamous nigel series)
how to behave in fairy tales (part of the rules series)

Central Cemetery and vienna are the two works in centrifugal eye, obviously both inspired by the city i live in.

make sure you also read the other poets' work, especially susan culver's and john vick's in hiss!

all-day struggle with the fickle muse today, day 22 out of 30. sigh.

song of the day: attwenger - muamen

once upon a time ...

... there was a blue-eyed, red-haired woman. together with her husband ... no no wait, that's better: her husband, she flew off to northern scandinavia for three weeks. they had a brilliant time and came back with loads of photos, a handful of cartoon drawings in a travel diary, and multifarious memories of a vast sky, the magical midnight sun, blue lakes set amid tall green grass, reindeer herds, cosy red houses and inviting wooden churches, peaceful places, cold nights in a tent, big-bellied clouds, majestic mountains rising from fiords, hikes in national parks, and their friends. the woman wanted to share her memories, and sat down to think about the where and how, and had a brainwave: a blog! yes, a blog would be perfect.

so she sat down and, on 4th august 2005, signed up with blogger.com, called her baby home and away and started to write. over the following days, she added entries about every single day of their nordic adventures including pictures. when that was done, she left the blog alone for a while, but in september, she found she had something to say that she wanted to share with friends and acquaintances, and whoever happened to stop by. the rest, as they say, is history.

a year after the first entry, the name of her blog has changed to between you and me, and she is still at it - posting poems, subs&pubs notes, vital blogthings quiz results, pictures of plants and people, sort-of concert and poetry reviews, and stuff about that thing called life, and she has no intention of stopping any time soon. for one thing, she does not want to disappoint her readership (*ha!*), but of course she could not stop if she tried. she's hooked.

she likes to find email alerts in her inbox that tell her someone has stopped by and left a comment. she likes to see her counter reaching the next full hundred or thousand. she sometimes marvels why on earth people look at, enjoy looking at, and even comment on pictures of her plants. and she is happy when she realizes it is because, somehow, they care. she has made new friends, and found a couple of old ones. her link list is growing. her weather pixie is beginning to seem *real*. she likes it here. stick around; she will, too.

and since such an occasion is the perfect time for a little change, she will abandon her "three things in every subject header" pattern. and she makes one half-promise: she will try to write more poetry book reviews. she owes the world (ie certain poets) some.

if you want to party, bring a drink. she likes australian shiraz, bailey's, and prosecco with strawberry juice! :)

happy birthday, blog!

(please tell me if the links don't work. they do for me but i am not sure they work for everybody.)

song of the day: sančuari - vilbá

midnight + sun = photo-poem

this is today's (02 august) offering for the 30/30 challenge (click image to enlarge):



song of the day: goldfrapp - utopia

bug, light, petals

hooked on haiga, it seems. this is today's offering for the 30/30 challenge (click image to enlarge):



song of the day: jim white & aimee mann - static on the radio