Failure

Halifax poet Don Domanski, 57, won the Governor General award for poetry this year for his book All Our Wonder Unavenged (Brick Books). It took him seven years to write the book.

When interviewed by the Globe and Mail, Domanski said "all poetry is failure in the end, because you never reach what you want.”

Oh, how true.

Keeping it to yourself

I don't like it when I run into people I know while grocery shopping. They always look into your cart and, I'm sure, judge you based on the type of shampoo you use or the amount of vegetables (or lack of vegetables) you have.

The other day, I ran into someone I know, who is rather on the short side. She asked for my help getting her Oxy face scrub off the top shelf. I didn't want to know that she uses Oxy to wash her face. I guess I have no desire to know the personal and, in a way, intimate details of someone's life.

Time lost.

I hate those days when I have plans to get a lot done, but then circumstances beyond my control take over. I wake up feeling under the weather or my computer crashes. Such inconveniences can eat up valuable hours. And it sucks.

For fall

Leaves "die with style:
as the tree retreats inside itself,
shutting off its valves at its
extremities
to starve in Technicolor, then
having served two hours in a children's leaf pile, slowly
stir its vitamins into the earth."

- Don McKay, "Some Functions of a Leaf"

Plans

I've lost my ability to be spontaneous. I usually turn down any last minute invitations.

For instance, my sister invited me to go to the bar on the spur of the moment. I said no. Partly, because I was in the middle of working on a poetry project and partly because I don't know if I have what it takes to stay out until 3 a.m. anymore.

However, had she asked me a few days in advance, I might have said yes. I would have had time to mentally prepare.

Sunday mornings

Since when did Sunday morning television get so offensive. First there are the usual religious types telling you that you're going to hell, and then there are the hunting shows where you watch men shoot birds and stick them in their pockets. I can't even watch the music channels anymore, because I find women who market themselves by wearing minimal clothing to be insulting to my intelligence.

Books

My first book is to be released in about a month. The editor sent me a draft copy. It's a surreal feeling seeing your name on the cover of a book for the first time. There is, of course, a sense of accomplishment and then a dreaded sigh. Mainly, because you have to proofread the damn book one last time. Good God, books are a lot of work. And it's not over yet, because I have to promote it too.

The spotlight effect . . .

"Even in waking life, many of us operate as if Simon Cowell is doing a play-by-play of our work, wardrobe, and snack choices . . . in the beam of imaginary spotlights, many of us suffer untold shame and create weaker, less zestful lives than we deserve." - Martha Beck

The breaking point of the mind...

Have you ever worked on a project and worked on a project and worked on a project until your mind feels that it has turned into mush?

Why is it that our brains can only do so much thinking and working until they become exhausted.

Brains aren't muscles. They just sit in our heads, so why do they tire out? They should be able to keep going and going . . . like the Energizer bunny. It would make meeting deadlines easier.

Hurricanes

Do you ever wonder why hurricanes get people names, like Katrina and Dean? It's humanizes a force that causes mass destruction.

Can you imagine sharing your name with a hurricane? Should you be flattered to be associated with so much power? Or upset to be associated with the destruction?

Maybe they should name hurricanes after military figures that nobody likes, such as Hitler and Napoleon. Or maybe Bible names of murders and evildoers, like Cain and Lucifer. Or villains in comic books, like Lex Luther . . .

Dreaming: The Great Equalizer

"Anyone can escape into sleep. We are all geniuses when we dream. The butcher's the poet's equal there." - E.M. Cioran, The Temptation to Exist.

Same Old

If you've been to one tourist town you've been to them all. Skagway, Dawson City, Jasper, Banff, Canmore and Old Sacramento, they all look the same to me. Even the tourist merchandise is the same.

Journalist Tantrums

As a journalist, I have made an oberservation: Journalists have an expectation that everyone will do an interview.

People, of course, have the right to refuse interviews. When they do, I've seen plenty of journalists get irrate. Journalists won't easily take "no" for an answer.

A lot of journalists feel they are entitled to information and a person's story. Democracy, afterall, is built on freedom of information. It is also built on the right to say "no."

While I respect a person's right to say "no," it certainly messes up a story. For instance, say when you lose the "other side's" perspective because of a refusal to do an interview. When people say the media is one-sided, well, sometimes that's because the "other side" doesn't want to talk. What's a journalist to do? One side is better than no sides.

On typewriters...

I don't understood the appeal of the typewriter in this day and age where computers rule supreme. Typewriters make edits pure hell. Yet I've met a number of young writers who are using old typewriters they've dug up out of their grandparents basement or bought on eBay.

I didn't understand the appeal of the typewriter until I read David Streit's poem: "untitled, november 23, 2006:"

"everyone loves a typewriter." Streit writes:

"it has the word writer in it.
no one wants to grow up to be a "puter."
eventually typing is a skill set that is being lost. this is the
recovery.
pause thought. scroll. type. type."

Karate Curse

Karate ruins a person's feet.

You aren't allowed to wear shoes in karate. And so, over the years of doing karate, sliding my feet along cracked gymnasium floors, I have got some nasty callouses. My heels are cracked. I have a callous on the side of my one baby toe that is starting to grow over the nail. (I know. It's disgusting).

I've had two pedicures since I've been doing karate. But when you remove the callouses, doing karate hurts, and the callouses come back thicker than ever.

Aside from the callouses, I've lost a toenail and cracked many others.

I've seen pictures of dancers' feet, and they are even worse than mine.

It's amazing what we do to our bodies in the name of sport.

Keep it to yourself...

There are some conversations you shouldn't have in public.

I was out at a restaurant once and was seated beside a mother who was loudly lecturing her 15-year-old daughter about the hazards of premarital sex.

Talk about ruining the innocent bystanders' appetites.

I was almost tempted to ask to be moved to another table, because I didn't really want to listen in, but couldn't help it. It was like I was unwillingly transplanted into this family's living room.

Awkward conversations are better kept at home, or at least kept to a low whisper.

On the lot...

Has anyone been watching the new show On The Lot?

Aspiring filmmakers air their short films each week and America votes on the best. A few of the earlier episodes followed the filmmakers as they made their films, but making films is actually more boring than it sounds. It's actors doing the same scene over and over again and long hours spent putting sound and picture together in an editing suite. It's only slightly more exciting than watching someone write a book. And it's a surprise On The Lot has low ratings?

Films, like writing, are about finished product. The process is quite dry and a bit of a slog. It's not like So You Think You Can Dance, where dancers put their bodies to the test and face injury in rehearsal.

Short films are not popular with the masses either. They are like the poetry of the film industry. They have a limited market.

That said, maybe there should be a So You Think You Can Write Poetry show. They have everything else. And are ratings really that important? Really?

Just not that into you...

Social situations can already be awkward and complicated enough in real life, but taking them into the virtual world makes them even more so.

Take Facebook for instance. You write a question on someone's wall and, through the "news feed," all your shared friends can see you wrote that question. Then that question just hangs there unanswered. The friend, you wrote the question to, has logged on since. You know this because you can see they've commented on other people's walls. You, however, are being ignored by them.

Do you take this personally? Are they deliberately snubbing you? Do they not feel your question relevant? Do they just not have the time to answer? They've had the time to write back to other friends and maybe even upload photos onto the site.

They wouldn't have ignored you if you had asked the question in person. That's just plain rude.

Do social networking sites, which are supposed to bring people closer together, encourage rudeness, given the impersonal nature of such sites?

Given that you're snubbed on Facebook by a friend, what does that mean for your friendship with that person? If they can't make time to answer your question, maybe they're just not that into you, because your true friends will write back right away.

And what to do with those friends who are not that into you? Do you just not bother to make time for them. Certainly, you won't be asking them any more questions on Facebook, because it's no fun being ignored.

Bringing friendships into the virtual world is complicated.

Rude, much?

Today, I got the most insulting piece of spam. It said: "Loose weight, fatty," or something to that effect.

Now, I can see why it would be funny to call a million random strangers fat via e-mail, but it's also incredibly cruel. Weight is a very sensitive issue for a lot of people.

There were definitely some people crying this morning when they saw that e-mail. Ouch.

Reality TV

I'm one of those sad people who is a reality TV addict. And let me say, it takes some serious commitment to keep up with them all. That's why I'm thankful for VCRs. (I haven't caught up to the 21st century, which means I don't have a digital recorder. I wish).

Watching reality TV is tough, because you get attached to certain people and then they get the boot and you have to keep watching anyway... even if it means watching someone you totally hate take the prize. Like I said, it takes commitment.