Workin' For A Living (National Poetry Writing Month)
It's funny to be able to envision the finish line already.
I approached this year's NaPoWriMo with some trepidation. Thirty poems in thirty days, with a newborn in tow, a blog to migrate and a full time job to boot? Today, looking back on the discipline and focus it required, I feel better about my ability to get things done (and yes, my amazing Finnish smartphone plays a huge role in that -- next stop, FTP!) and confident that I'll have (at least) the first draft of my latest novel done by September.
But let's stay focused -- poetry time! Yes, it's a haiku, shut up, I'm sleepy!
Tick tock time passing
Workplace quiet hangs heavy
rush hour hell desired
"I don't feel like working today"
By Hannibal Tabu There have been "toss out a haiku" days, but I'm pretty proud with many of these pieces, significant first drafts that I could build on. Looking back (as I suspect I won't have time to do as the week draws to a close and I deal with the Blogger situation), I've liked ...
... and some of the shorter pieces were okay, like "Digital Diva" or "Tanka: Nokia N900" or "Cuddle Time" or even "The Seeming Flow of Thoughts Based On My Newborn's Expressions".
I notice some themes that recur -- parenting, inspiration, characters I see either in fiction or every day life, even coming to grips with one's self. I find this month's batch an interesting examination and can't wait to examine them more in workshops. I hope to compile an index of all of the pieces for the end of the month (today's a good start, heh)
Just a few more days, y'all ...
Playing (Music):
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: creativity, haiku, napowrimo, poetry, work, writing
Drive (National Poetry Writing Month)
I've been grinding and barely had any ideas. Lemme see if I can shape this half-an-idea into something ...
Accelerate.
First feeling transition
stillness to motion,
discarding Newtonian tradition
for freedom.
Tap brakes to consider
left and right, choices and chances
wheels roll and -- whoa!
Watch your speed, jerktown,
kids play around here!
Anyway ...
blacktop bounce
lane to lane
(Dodge that delivery van)
switch on the stereo
Crappy rapper ...
crappy old school rapper ...
(watch it Camry)
sappy singer ...
(nice Bentley, old dude)
oldie that doesn't fit the mood ...
sugary pop crap ...
sugary dance crap ...
... hh, "Hotel California" would work for open road
but not for dippin' and dodgin'
(crap, you ever hear of a turn signal?)
whiny alt-rock ...
grungy alt rock ...
not in the mood for this 80s song ...
where's that iPod?
Playlist?
(ease off gas pedal, catching police lights waiting ahead)
Driving While Black.
pounding beats and staccato vocals
accentuate scowl at occupying forces,
diminishing my velocity
holding me back with their nation of millions.
Bleary-eyed windows watch impassively as I pass
(stupid crotch rocket motorcycle
... oh, and nobody wants to see your girl's stained thong!)
wide lanes and plain sedans
mini vans filled with wrestling matches in back,
harried mom gripping frizzed hair and steering wheel.
It's Monday and miles fall like feet
marathon making their way to work
to school
to home
to life.
I pump up the volume
with Rakim sensibilities
and an Aceyalone lean
headrest peeking past back door window
but hands at eight and four.
Pick up the pace
past pick up trucks,
Tundras path finding their way
in my way,
Turner Family
ignoring red stripe across turn arrow
obstructing justice
making intersection parking lot.
My mind's on Excel spreadsheets
with Chali 2na's words on my tongue
keep moving.
This is the life we chose.
Keep moving.
Keep moving.
"The Commute"
By Hannibal Tabu
Now to make that commute -- hasta y'all!
Playing (Music): "Wild Pitch" by Ras Kass feat. Jah Skillz and Xzibit
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: cars, driving, napowrimo, poetry, work, writing
Scattershot (work friends phones politics gratitude life)
BANG! BANG! Bullet point blog shots to your dome, home skillet!
- Today I flew to Oakland at 7AM for an all-day staff meeting. I didn't really consider it the best usage of my time, but I got some good news: I got a raise at my job that will kick in within a month, plus a nice little bonus based on merit. Me! Merit actually recognized! I'm so flabbergasted at that I think I'll start a new savings account.
- I also was extraordinarily blessed to hang out with my friends, libertarian kook and activist Jere and anti-Obama crusader Jabir. We ate at a place in Jack London Square called Kincaid's and recorded what might one day be one heck of an amusing podcast. Jere and I also re-enacted a scene from Pulp Fiction because the rental company stuck him with a Grand Marquis that had less than 9,000 miles on it. I almost wanted to make out with this car. I love domestic sedans, I won't apologize for that.
- When I got home to my beautiful wife and sleeping daughter, I ordered my new phone, the Nokia N900. I also got a hard rubber case to protect it. My laughable Samsung Behold 1, which I could only review like this will likely be used as a spare camera/MP3 player for the car. I'm excited to step back into the 21st century, but a little nervous about getting all my data up and running on a new OS which is not exactly user friendly. More news on that as it develops, as the phone should be in my hot little hands by Wednesday.
- Saskatchewan.
- My dinner at Kincaid's with Jere and Jabir got me really interested in this book and how DDT could save millions of lives (while, admittedly, whacking a few along the road) as well as spur on development on the African continent. Maybe I'll expand on that. Maybe.
- My stepdaughter's mother got me some down slippers. I barely know the woman. I find that extraordinarily kind and generous, and appreciate it a great deal. I am very blessed to have some very good people in my life.
- Shut up, you're drunk!
- Also got a very nice comment about my good friend Craig, who I miss dearly but who (like many of my friends) simply operates outside of my periphery right now. The good thing is that like many other friends -- Inpu, Dana, Malik, McGowan, some others -- the second I see him we'll fall right back into that old rhythm, like we never missed a beat. I'm very grateful for that too.
- I think the $12 backpack I carry my work computer in is starting to show some signs of wear and tear ... I bought it on a whim at a Sav-On in Westchester late one night.
- Why is this bullet point blog not on The Hundred and Four like the last one I did? It's more personal. The last one was more "look around at the world" and what not.
- I will say, musically, that I'm enjoying the surprisingly smart mixtape from Malcolm and Martin and the singer London's new project, both of which have me itching with ideas for a mixtape of my own. Lloyd's also been dropping some digital heat, while Chris Brown's been engaging his Euro-pop side with songs that would likely rock Catch One. Mateo's new project is also a revelation, so far.
- Sleep now. Early morning watching Fraulein Fussenfeiffer (my daughter Ella's nickname is "Fuss," which I have morphed into Doctor Fussenstein and more weird configurations, which are at least close to being spoken in English) while the wife teaches, then (I think) a 3D screening of Alice in Wonderland and maybe time for my weekly haircut at my barber's new shop (he's a co-owner), Head of The Line Barber Shop, 5420 Adams Boulevard, 323-691-8475. Clean shop, nice neighborhood, an organic cafe next door, ample street parking and some hilarious freakin' barbers crackin' jokes in there.
Playing (Music): "I'ma Rep Texas" by Chamillionaire
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: family, friends, gratitude, life, music, phones, politics, randomness, work
People Everyday (plus a round up of what else is going on)
The Aeron chair reclines easily, the lumbar support just beneath the swing of my shoulder blades, and another workday moves by with glacial surety. Two bright rectangles beam light at my glasses-framed face, while a third dark rectangle waits for me to figure out what to do with it. Super Bowl memories drift in from neighboring "bull pens" where corporate-minded suits converse, vying with the tapping of computer keys and the incessant clicking of mice (digital, not rodents).
The sixth person I know tells me, " I know you are on a social media sabbatical, but Facebook is not the same without you." I chuckle, oddly noting that Twitter was harder to kick, given it ability to supply me with new data and new reference points. No, I'm right in believing that I need the time to cut external input for a while, give my own processes time to marinate and mix before unleashing the next salvos of content on an unsuspecting world. Oddly enough, I already know what my first tweet will be when I'm back on January 20, 2011 ... and I may tell somebody, if asked properly.
I have a bit of an addictive personality, so I've switched a fraction of the energy that used to go into incessantly checking my status updates to Google Reader, which is ironic given some of the ways I've been talking about the Mountain View company these days. Google has, however temporarily, given me tools to maintain some of my broadcast desires during my sabbatical -- I used to keep a lengthy text file full of links for my own reference on an SD card, but with the demise of my last smartphone that's been harder, and here's Google Reader to help me keep track of these weird links, and in public too. Who knew?
To be honest, given how twitchy Facebook Mobile was getting in making me log in twice to see my notifications, it's a little harder to miss than open-armed Twitter, which often held a less fleeting degree of discourse. Not to say I don't miss the good features of sharing on Facebook, but it's a more distant ache. Oddly enough, not even three weeks into the vacation from social networking, I barely feel the twinge, and I'm even able to walk away from my nicotine patch-esque applications of email and Google Reader for long stretches of time on the weekend. Who knows how uninformed -- and productive -- I'll be in a few months?
I can't wait to find out.
In other news, here's what I've been doing that you might have missed:
- My lengthy blog against cloud computing where I come down hard on Android phones, non-local productivity apps, distributed entertainment media and the idea of trusting somebody else to babysit your stuff.
- Every week I do comic book reviews for this site called Comic Book Resources, and I post commentary tracks almost every week after I've had a little more time to reflect, adding back stories and what have you.
- Finally published a long-forgotten blog giving my position on abortion.
- As noted, I'm sharing links with Google Reader so you can see where my mind is going. Hm, I gotta include that link on the front page of my website ...
C'est fini.
Playing (Music): "Dream Shatterer" by Big Pun, who died ten years ago yesterday
NOTE: Since this blog is automatically imported into my Facebook page, I apologize if you comment on it and I don't respond, as I am taking a sabbatical from social networking for 2010. So me not responding is not personal, I just won't see the comments ... until 2011. Maybe. Also including this disclaimer on blogs, but you're welcome to go to the blog itself and speak your mind, as I may look there ...Labels: blogging, comics, social_networking, work
The Ghost of Halloween Past
Remember I said I got roped into judging a Halloween contest at my job? I never said that to you? Must have been somebody else.
Anyway, here's what the judges looked like ...
...and here's who won ...
... and I can't find a photo here (one of my co-worker's Facebook account has way more than the official work photo album) but there's a ghoul costume which I thought was way more effective. Que sera sera.
All judges used decimals for their five point votes, I kept rewinding Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on my iPod while they walked down the hallway and amusement was had by all.
If you're wondering, it was also Jersey Friday at my office (I was at a branch location when this madness was happening), so I just decided my costume would be "the jackass at the club," and kept telling everyone I saw in an affected voice -- men and women -- "hey baby, lemme buy you a fish sammich!" Hilarity!
Playing (Music): "Georgie Porgy" by Eric Benet feat. Faith EvansLabels: halloween, work
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