That was a mind-boggler!

I showed the pieces that I'm planning on entering in the Random House contest to my cousins after dinner. They immediately latched onto something that I'd not noticed before -- I use the word "I" frequently in my verses. In fact, in about 5500 words, I'd used it 287 times. This worked out to about 9 times per page, which wouldn't be bad if it was prose and the lines went right across the page. Instead, it's poetry, so I did a replace on it and made it bold, italic, underlined, and a font size larger so that I can't miss them on the page.

Now the work begins!

Social life

Well, I have three whole days of ... in a row!

So today I'm having lunch with Nina. Tomorrow I'm having dinner with my cousins. And Wednesday ... I'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I've been working on my Random House project. I have over six thousand words of poetry to submit (the limit is eight thousand), but I'm getting scared now.
1. What if it's considered old-fashioned? I write mostly sonnets and sestinas with the occasional villanelle thrown in for good measure. I've done some blank verse pieces and syllabics. My unstructured pieces are in the minority, though.
2. What if they find it trite and unimaginative? It's hard to tell if it's good enough, when I'm looking at my own stuff. I know what I was trying to achieve. I know how far short I fell.
3. What if they don't like it? 'Nuff said.

This was what I meant by my resolution to live life more fully; take chances on these things because I'll never know unless I send it in. So ... back to work!

Oh, and 4. I'll keep working on some prose pieces to enter over the next couple of years.

Full moon

This morning, as I was walking, I felt humbled by the beauty of the full moon and delicacy of the stars. They made me feel so small and insignificant. Well ... I am, comparatively speaking, but it just hit me in a way I'd not felt before.

I wish I had a better vocabulary so that I could express the awe that they inspired in me.

No course this winter

I've decided that I won't be going back to Uof T until the spring semester, because if I miss more than two classes, I lose the credit.

My job, however, has given me ideas for a story / novel, made up of scenes with customers. Not like "Clerks", because that's more from a young person's viewpoint. Maybe it won't work but I'll have fun with it. Of course, I could also do it as a series of poems, which might be even better.

I have hot water!

It seems that one of the gentlemen who installed my furnace on Tuesday, must have jostled the settings on the water heater.

See you later, folks. I'm off for a long, hot soak ... with bubbles, no less!

New Year's Day

Well, the first of my New Year's resolutions for this year is to be happier than last year. Shouldn't be difficult. Another one is to live life more fully -- again, not difficult. My third, and last, is to wear jewellery more often.

Alex was *very* affectionate while the furnace was out. It wasn't too bad, actually, because I had two space heaters (one borrowed from the furnace people) to keep the pipes from freezing. It was comfortable enough when I was moving around.

The new furnace is chugging along beautifully but, yesterday, the hot water heater was giving me tepid water at the very hottest! I was concerned about this until I realised that the temperature dial was about knee height. It's possible that one of the gentlemen installing my new furnace brushed against it and changed the setting accidentally. Now I'll have to keep him out of the furnace room ... just in case.