english weather & italian food - england day 8

the nasty little buggers inside my chest are still quite well, it seems. better than i am, at any rate. i've still had a bit of a temperature all day, and i tire easily. breathing is harder than usual, and the sounds that emerge from my chest area alternately make me chuckle and worry.

i took a short, very slow walk by the beach before breakfast, and after breakfast went to look at the sunny day from my window seat, watching the tide go out and, later in the day, come back in. i love, love, love the sea!

i edited some of the hundreds of photos i have already taken (probably a blessing in disguise, this sickness, huh?), read some poetry, talked to heinz, dozed off a couple of times. thicker clouds moved in by mid-afternoon. it was quite cosy inside, and i was tired, but nevertheless - sick or not - a girl's got to eat.

i'd been craving italian food for days, so i checked the area for italian restaurants on the www. shanklin! practically just down the road. so i dressed nicely and ventured out. it had been dry since morning, but of course, as soon as i set foot on the street, it started to rain. not very nice, so i didn't walk around much in shanklin, but made for the restaurant (mamma mia, run by actual italians). delicious food (veggie lasagna and a huge serving of garlic bread), and for entertainment i watched two of the young employees putting up the last part of a huge wall poster.

when i made my way back to sandown, it was pouring down ... though it has gotten worse since. makes it all the nicer to be in my neat little room.

i'm glad i decided to change my flight back, because i probably would have passed out from fatigue somewhere along the way from here to vienna tomorrow, what with the luggage and flying and all. better this way, although i am missing out on a long overdue meeting with a former business english class and the psychotherapy fair on saturday.

i hope to feel good enough to go out for a few hours tomorrow. nice as it is in my room, i am beginning to get cabin fever!


song of the day: mamma mia by abba.

naughty bacteria, the iron lady & a poetry acceptance - england day 7

so, a trip to the sandown health centre this morning for my 09:40 appointment. the verdict: chest infection. nasty little buggers in my chest had to spoil my well-deserved, much-needed holiday! for the second time this year i am on antibiotics. the last time i took antibiotics before 2013 was in the early 90s or even in the late 80s! crazy. apart from antibiotics - rest. i asked about flying out on thursday: not recommended. well.

pharmacy, breakfast, www to do something about my flight. eventually found a rather cheap flight back, cheaper than changing my ticket at any rate! so i will be here till sunday. i hope by the end of the week i will be fit enough to venture out for some hours or i'll get a different kind of fever - cabin fever!

i rested, then went for a 15 minute stroll before getting something to eat. the short walk and a trip to the shop left me more tired than my 14 km walk on saturday! but then, i still have a temperature.


broken sun


the good news of the day is that after a couple of rejection notes, i got a "yes" from red fez magazine, accepting my poem inspired by the element magnesium. i am glad it has found a home - and red fezes look stunning on poems. ;)

of course, the big thing everybody is talking about here is the death of the iron lady, margaret thatcher, who passed yesterday. there are reports of street parties, of people rejoicing in her death. i understand where some of them might be coming from (though i believe many of them are too young to actually remember, or were not even born back then), but i still think it is wrong. (i'd actually like to ask them a simple question: let's say your mother is a controversial public figure. or let's just say the neighbours didn't get on with her. let's say she dies after a long struggle with cancer or a demented old woman. how would you feel if the people in your street had impromptu parties, singing songs about the wicked witch being dead?)

the margaret thatcher who died yesterday was not the margaret thatcher of the 1980s, she was an old and very sick woman. and yes, thatcher steered the country into an entirely wrong direction, from my point of view - and obviously from the POV of many, many british people - but she did not do so single-handedly, and those who have come after her ... well ... they haven't exactly helped, have they, to put things right. thatcher might have started it, she might have messed up a lot of things ... scratch that, she DID mess up a lot of things for a lot of people, but what about her successors? will partying in reaction to the news of an old woman's death change anything, anything at all? 'fraid not. what it would take is for people to get organised instead. have they got that in them?

still, i had to chuckle at the typo on some media website: "margaret thatcher died after a strike". if it was a typo, that is ... it might also have been cleverly sneaked into the article ... ;) and - i don't believe in an afterlife, but ... if there happens to be one, perhaps margaret t. can get stuck in a neverending miners' strike. *g*

and okay, i can't resist choosing the following as my ...


song of the day: stand down margaret by billy bragg.

colds, headaches, crime, and poetry

my students apparently brought enough germs to the classroom to make me sick, too, so i had to stay home from work for a couple of days. blah.

at least i had time to read a novel that managed to give me nightmares two nights in a row - "menschenteufel" (which translates as "human devil") by marcus rafelsberger. i am not normally a fan of crime novels, but i was curious, as rafelsberger is an old schoolmate's husband. quite well-written, but then i don't have much to compare it to. but it certainly held my attention! a bonus was that the book is set in vienna, and therefore i repeatedly came across places i know. i am now ready to begin another jasper fforde novel - yay!

another book i just (re-)read is jayne pupek's poetry collection "forms of intercession". if i had to sum up the book in one word, it would be: brave. it's been a while since i read a book of poems that confronted me with so much beauty and so much unpleasantness - in short: everything human. pupek doesn't stop where others might not dare to go, and that makes her stand out. there are poems that i've returned to four, five, ten times - and i am sure will go back to again. it's as if they grabbed me by the throat when i first read them, and have not quite let go. while the best way to learn about life is still, well, living it, but books like pupek's come a close second.

my muse probably didn't want to catch my cold and has been quite for a few days, but before she took that time-out, we created this (not decided on the [sub]title yet):

069
Thulium (Tm)

       I swear I'm only human, wishing I could disappear
       -- Amelia Curran, "The Mistress"

This is what happens when gods get drunk:
You start a conversation and ice is left to melt

in fancy drinks. Hours later, three hasty kisses
and the cold metal of his ring against your cheek.

By then it's already too late for the promise
you made to yourself: this ends right here.

The first time, you make butterflies dance
on the blanket. You measure time in heartbeats

and the cooling of sweaty limbs. Months later,
it's pale green sheets and the ticking of a clock

that translates as judgement - wrong, sad,
wrong, sad - and stirs the beginnings of loathing,

rushes the slow dying of love. Gravedigger
you call yourself, late at night, when you wake

from dreams that are part of the high price
you pay. Gravedigger. And you are digging deep.

You have 69 random words in your pockets –
for a love letter, for a note of farewell.

The one word that's missing is hope. The gods
who tempted you are fast asleep. Like him

in that other place, where your mind can't go,
which you'd still know by its scent: routine, love,

and lies. Your shadow sleeps between them,
but that doesn't comfort you. When this is over,

there won't be any sympathy, just as there are
no gifts: you are the beggar, you are the thief.


song of the day: breathe (2 am) by anna nalick.

guys (yet again) & poems

okay, so there *are* still some nice guys out there, it seems. met one of them just now. and one of the "bad" guys has apologized in the meantime. so. i am inclined to believe in man-kind again. at least a little. ;)

yesterday i finished a poem i had begun in april, and i revised another one. they seem finished to me, although after all these months of not writing, i am a bit uncertain. but i am thrilled that i managed to write a few lines and not be utterly unhappy with them. here are a few lines from [metamorphosis]:

2 a.m. and the night is still digging
in its pockets for a slice of moon

clouds shift uneasily, as if for a moment
all the world unfolded their hands

someone learns that a hair on a blue pillow
can trigger a silence in the trees

[...]

have not been feeling too great the last few days, i suppose that's not such a big surprise after the cold and rainy spell we had. today i went for a walk though, at the new jewish section of central cemetery. i saw two deer - yes, in broad daylight, and not too far from the entrance!

still excited about leonard cohen - my brother martin will come to vienna for the occasion, too, yay! :)

song of the day: ever fallen in love by thea gilmore.

this girl has been ...

poorly, sickly, ill, and therefore at home and mostly in bed since monday afternoon. and no, it hasn't been fun. and the heat outside did not actually help. blah.

so nothing much is new, except that i finished a poem the other day - the first since late september. i am not sure i am happy with it yet, but it is a first tiny little step in the right direction. at the moment, i feel too weak and tired to celebrate this, but i will make up for that. :)

i have completed most of the boooooring translation (if you ever want to know anything about supplier management software, this is who you should turn to!) with the mid-july deadline, hooray!

a few days ago, i tidied up my flickr site - the sets are now neatly arranged in collections. the most recent one is the euro2008 collection, and the vienna collection has been updated.

and it appears i have been hispanified. which means that i am picking up spanish here and there, and that i seem to have gotten over my dislike for the language, and that - who would've thought? - i want to know more. according to one of my "teachers", i don't quite deserve una estrella dorada yet, but at least i am worthy of a tiny little little purple star. (gracias, valerio. not!)

pic of the day:


taken from my living-room window last week


song of the day: quedate luna by devendra banhart.

up. down.

waaaaahhhhh!!! so i am just getting over that nasty cold, right, and what do you think happens? i catch a stomach bug. great. just about perfect. it is not as bad as it could be, but that doesn't make vomiting any more fun. thing is, no matter how blah i feel, i still have to get lots of things done this weekend, and i am very proud to have finished my prep work already.

this clip here cheered me up yesterday, and cheered me up again today. check out demetri martin's website.



song of the day: song of the ghetto by stéphanie valentin.

this girl

this girl is still sick. but right now she is smiling anyway. because someone made her. :)

this girl is also trying to come up with clever answers to nic sebastian's 10 questions on publication. so far, kristy bowen, reginald shepherd, carolyn guinzio and nate pritts have answered.

this girl received kristy odelius's bee spit in the mail and is looking forward to reading it.

this girl would like to congratulate suzanne frischkorn on the publication of her american flamingo!

this girl is hoping to be well enough to go to the open mic tomorrow night.

song of the day: sonnet by the verve.

sick girl

okay. so it was NOT sensible to go to that party. alright alright. *grrr* i've been sick all week, no work (ie no money *grrr*), and not as much fun as usual. i actually really miss my students. i hope they miss me too! :)

instead of staying in bed all the time like a good girl, i am spending waaaay too much time on facebook, scrabulous and in chat - catching up with friends, and getting to know new people. this is the only thing that can keep me from sleeping these days, it seems. *s*


song of the day: wednesday by tori amos.

"you alley cat licking tin cans cutting your tongue"

... is a line from my poem you nude girl folding your arms which is now up at juked. on the page, you'll find a link to the schiele painting that inspired it.

trillium has accepted one poem (Niobium (Nb) - Niobe's Loss) for their inaugural issue which is due out in 2 weeks.

and i have not written anything new in ages. i am beginning to miss it. really miss it.

i'm sick, had a fever since sunday, baaaaaad sore throat, head the size of a soccer stadium. a padded one. had to drag myself to work. bleargh. teaching 8 hours is exhausting at the best of times, in my current state it is ... what's the word? madness? suicide?


donaukanal (danube canal), vienna

song of the day: yellow by coldplay.