with my return to teaching, getting to know a new group and - of course - prep work, writing was pushed aside a bit this week. however, i've been working on a poem that i find quite difficult to handle, a poem in which recently uncovered issues in connection with my childhood and my mother are the main theme. the working title is "Portrait of Mother in Eleven Questions". i think i've got almost all i want to say, but am tinkering with the lines and words on and off. we'll see where it takes me / i take it.

nice/good/happy things this week: work. nice feedback. a colleague who'd obviously missed me. not as much chocolate. hooking up with an old school friend i had not seen in 10 years. a walk in sunshine & snow. a good film (winds of sand, women of rock) with a good friend. a farmville extension. a 27 page letter from my dear aussie friend rachael - always a treat. an interesting therapy session. a pineapple - cheap and juicy. a dream in which george clooney flirted with me in german and english. heinz.


song of the day: rock like a baby by elizabeth harper.

happy things:

fun video shoot for steve gander's song copulate and populate on sunday afternoon - the weirdest "wedding" with the craziest guests ever. tons of photos (i was the "official" photographer! bliss!!), will post a link when they are online.

lovely to catch up with nathan and ronnie and harold on sunday during and after "work".


i talked john siddique, poet and friend, into coming to vienna in october (not that this was a difficult thing to do), and we are doing a reading together! yay!


yesterday evening i had a very good phone conversation with someone i quite like, who was not doing too great, and he told me today that he was feeling better because of me. now if that isn't lovely feedback ... :)


i had a very pleasant late afternoon/early evening: at shakespeare & co, a wonderful little bookshop in vienna's first district, i spoke to gerti (who runs it with her children) about having our reading there, and she was all for it. we had an interesting and really lovely - and rather long - talk, and after she'd heard what i do for work, she said "okay, i have to ask you straight away ..." and she told me about a street fest in the neighbourhood of the bookshop, which is the oldest part of vienna, dating back to the times of the romans. it will be held on 13 september, and she asked me whether i was interested in doing some sort of poetry "workshop" or project there, and so i told her about some ideas and experiments i do with my english classes, and she was totally happy and excited. so. i will be there on 13 september. :) we started talking about leonard cohen, i mentioned i had a ticket, she said she didn't, and i asked if she wanted my brother's spare one. she thought i was kidding. so - she is buying the ticket, or rather, her children will, for her birthday. very successful and productive meeting, don't you think? when i wanted to buy an alice in wonderland notebook, she gave it to me as a present, and i left her a copy of the secret meanings of greek letters.

i bought a book called must try harder - the very best howlers by schoolchildren (which i can use in english classes), and here is my quote of the day:

Poetry is when every line starts with a capital letter and doesn't reach the right side of the page.

oh, happy birthday to rachel! rock on, girl!


song of the day: that's not my name by the ting tings.

yes yes yes!

i had given up on this dream of mine coming true - but:

I JUST BOUGHT A TICKET FOR THE LEONARD COHEN CONCERT IN SEPTEMBER!

i am sooo thrilled!!

so, after all, "there's a concert hall in vienna ..." and his mouth might just get a thousand reviews.


song of the day: take this waltz by leonard cohen.

vienna & persepolis

i. am. back. in. the. game. yay! ;))

lovely evening yesterday. i am keeping mum about my guest (a girl needs her secrets), but this was me (yeah i know, who would have guessed!):



i also made it to the cinema for the first time in ages, thanks to my colleague and friend daniela. she suggested the matinee at votiv kino and i am so glad i came along. if you have not seen persepolis and you have a chance to, don't miss it. it's an animated film based on the graphic novels by marjane satrapi, about a girl growing up in tehran. through her eyes we witness the transformations as the fundamentalists gain power, we mourn her executed family / friends, and with marjane we experience joy, sadness, confusion, loneliness, the feeling of not fitting in. the filmy is lovingly, beautifully made, with funny and heartbreaking details throughout. i loved the parts set in vienna - they really brought some of the locals to life ... especially the weird woman with her dog! :)

lunch, a walk, and lots of girl talk - very nice afternoon.

and this is me right now:


henna girl

song of the day: dance me to the end of love by leonard cohen.

today ...

... i've been called crazy (in a good way. i think.), wonderful, lovely, (very nice), supportive, fun, a super trainer, the best. i've been hugged. someone made me laugh at 06.40 a.m. and my lovely students, the group i'd been teaching for 8 weeks, gave me this:


flowers from andreas, renate, robert, reinhard, henry, regina, dariusz, franz, birgit, johanna, nadine, martha, irene, karin.

i was/am not as sad as i often am on the last day, because i will see half of my students again next monday when english III starts, so i will see them again for another eight weeks. it was absolutely touching to see how happy they were when they heard they could all join my next class! :)

and happy birthday to my friend and colleague nathan! :)

song of the day: you ain't seen nothing yet by bachman turner overdrive.

good things, part 2

two acceptance notes in one day! i'm really happy that press 1 wants to publish three of my poems - a mini-series - in their upcoming issue. now if only my poor old brain would come up with some clever "process notes"!

and i don't know what the world is coming to, but some of the chapbooks i sent out have reached their US destinations within a week. surely that must be an accident. *g*

oh, and ms cartwright-denison, dgp's december girl, is a darling. :)

song of the day: the song remains the same. *wink*

good things

one good thing about having a chapbook out is that one can swap it for other people's books. in the mail today: andrew shields' bilingual cabinet d'amateur. i look forward to reading it. in the mail yesterday: payment from my friend chris - bill bryson's shakespeare.

my students really got into their restaurant role play today - one team ended up having to "call the police" to kick out a bunch of "drunk guests". :)

after work, my colleague nathan said to me: "you're hot, michi."
okay, i made him say it.
and we were really only talking about temperature. you know, hot as in "not cold". but it was still nice to hear it from a man. :-p

loch raven review accepted four of the nine or ten poems i sent them for their winter issue! editor chris george asked me to send my chapbook so they might do a review. yay!

aaaaand i just found out that my favourite live band ever, kaizers orchestra, are playing at arena in vienna in april! woo-hoo!! another chance to see their singer take off his jacket. and shirt. and who knows ... *g*



song of the day: ompa til du dør by kaizers orchestra.