nice people and not so nice people

yesterday was my last day with the english II class - another eight weeks over in what seemed like the blink of an eye! my students gave me a mandarin tree, now called amy, and a couple of frogs (not real!) that i can try to throw at the wall if i feel like it: ferdinand and floggy. and chocolate and candles. :) we threw a farewell party on the last day, of course. ;)

i have recovered from being ill, and the weather is now back to summer, very hot, too hot to be working in stuffy rooms or spending more than three minutes on the u1 underground trains. thursday evening i honestly thought i'd pass out in there. ugh.

but what other way to get to my date? and that thursday evening was most definitely worth it. a perfect summer evening on a terrace, stars out, and late at night a bit of mist hovering just above the ground on neighbouring fields ... a candle, a couple of drinks, pistachios and chocolate, good music ... relaxed conversation, laughter ... and the rest, my dear readers, will not be disclosed (no, not even for the sake of science, valerio! *g*).


but ... tonight this girl here is not quite so thrilled and wondering where exactly it says "please piss me off!" or "show me how much of an asshole you can be!" - or is standing women up and generally behaving like complete bastards the latest fashion among men?? in this particular case, maybe i should have seen it coming. maybe so. but that does not make it right. by the time it became obvious that the man in question had better things to do than stick to his promise, it was too late for anything else, so i spent the evening at home, working, and chatting. sometimes i really am beginning to think i should give up on men altogether.

no new poetry. but i now have copies of alex stolis's and my chapbook signed by us both, so if you fancy a chapswap or would like to buy one of these (rare) copies, get in touch!

we've received our copies of the book about the armenian massacres in turkey, so i have started reading and taking notes, and we will decide soon which parts will be translated by ka and by me respectively.

i am re-reading cecilia woloch's late, and some of the poems choke me up no matter how often i read them. such great work. and i still have tons of (chap)books piled up that i hope to get around to reading soon: latest additions are ivy alvarez's mortal and sam byfield's from the middle kingdom.

off to bed now, i am an official photographer at steve gander's videoshoot for copulate and populate tomorrow (today, really)!

oh, and: me!




song of the day: salsa caliente by marisa monte & cesaria evora.