Yardwork
May 5
Poetry, working in the sun, awash in story, beer, love, a novel; what a nice, nice Sunday.
Rose to find a note from an editor, requesting poetry, in my inbox; always nice. So I sat on the couch with a notebook and a book about monsters and wrote two new Bestiary poems; "Plate Spinning" and "Engulfer". I think they're even better than the previous two. (My notebook is littered with the corpses of failed bestiary poems, too, lest you think they come to me so easily) We'll see if the editors agree...
Heather (who updated her journal tonight) was working in the yard, so I went to help her. The yard has been basically untouched for months; it was over knee-high in weeds. So Heather went to work weeding the flowerbeds and veggie garden bits, and I wielded the weedeater and the lawnmower. Hot, itchy work, but satisfying, too; the yard looks less like a jungle now, more a place where one could put a chair, sit down, and have a beer. I'm glad we did it.
I convinced Heather we deserved some pleasure after that, so we took the train to Berkeley and saw a lateish (but still cheap!) matinee of Spiderman, which was much better than I'd expected -- I liked it far better than X-Men. An enjoyable two hours. Then we went to Jupiter, only to discover there was no available seating in their lovely courtyard, and since it smells funny and is hot inside, we wandered on, eventually ending up in a small rooftop beer garden at another bar. We had mediocre food and weird cider and very pleasant conversation.
We returned home, watched some television, snuggled, had Bengal spice tea. Mmm. Heather's just gone to bed, and I'm still up, hours to go before sleep, probably; I'll write this, roam online, and read more of Graham Joyce's Requiem, which is shaping up to be my favorite of his books.
This is nice. This ongoing life.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 62,650
Words written since last entry: 700
Send me strange emeralds with idols in their mouths.
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