words and bills
My writing workshop has become disappointing to me. No negative feedback is allowed, and I think that is the reason. I like getting my work critiqued; it seems more genuine than a continuous stream of “that was great” and “you narrate so well” and the like. But believe me, I’m not getting ANY of that continuous stream. No, people tend to say things like “that was interesting” or “quite vivid” and I shouldn’t be disgruntled but I am. I don’t want to be The Token Weird Writer. I want to fit in, and do good work. Instead I stick out and I’m producing shit. Plus, it’s a free-for-all when it comes to feedback time, and I have such issues about interrupting or being interrupted that I...
Read Moresewn together
and then on the opposite side like pulling wet thread through new skin i am imbued with the thought of you each stitch one more blink closer to that open-eyed breath two more steps it all goes so fast and then i could watch the sunlight progress across your flailing potted plants but i would rather watch you like sediment my hand settles in a particular place in sleep on top of your wrist a mirror image of where your hand grips in waking my wrist as we cross the street i shared with you these little important things the card games i like to play you beat me thoroughly in each one and i got proud instead of mad in the bookstore you point to the volumes i am too overwhelmed to remember and you bring your choices to me like wildflowers letting me turn and sniff each...
Read Morephlegm factory
My new title is Phlegm Factory. Just when I thought I had turned the corner on this cold, it caught up with me during a few sleepless nights. And now I am snotoriffic. The writing workshop on Tuesday night was a lot of fun. I wrote three pieces I shared with the MSG later, despite their roughness, and I think he liked them. They were at least fun to write, because the instructor has some good prompts, and it’s a relaxed atmosphere. The other participants are good, so I feel sufficiently challenged and motivated. I do not, however, feel great about taking the 5 Fulton to get there. Within 40 minutes I had my fill of one (1) screaming baby, one (1) portly gentleman’s genitals mere inches from my face, one (1) twentysomething alternarocker rolling...
Read Morezombiet00nz
For my fellow compulsive correctors of iTunes info: “This program takes songs that you’ve chosen in your iTunes Library, that have incorrect or missing information for Title, Artist or Album, and then uses the sound of each song to match it with the correct information maintained in the MusicBrainz Database.” The best part of this program is that it’s called iEatBrainz.
Read Moreoven puke
Note to self: my killer meatloaf recipe does not play well with ground un-meat for vegetarians. Although I gave it a good shot, it was pretty gross. I mean, it tasted okay, but it looked like the oven puked into a casserole dish. And I need to go easy on the milk part of the mashed sweet potatoes. Just say no to baby food. Thankfully, the chocolate chip cookies made up for dinner’s shortcomings. I think I’ll make Monday nights my official Try Not To Kill The Vegetarian Flatmate With My Cooking Experiments nights. Do you have any good recipe suggestions for next week? I’m focusing on ingredients I can purchase at the farmer’s market.
Read Morewhat you should know
Great questions, folks! I’ll answer the ones I’ve received so far, but feel free to ask more. Tallbob51 asks: “This is too tempting to pass up, so is there one particular event that you would say has altered your life and what is it?” Wow. I have been thinking about this one all day. My life has been a series of upheavals; hasn’t everyone’s? Perhaps not. The event with the most significant impact on my life was my move to Chicago after my parents separated in 1984. I had lived in a very small rural town in the Northwest prior to this, and I was dropped in the middle of a huge city. My religious beliefs were tested, as was my resilience, and although I lost the former, I gained a greater degree of the latter. I simply...
Read Moresunday funday
Yay! The MSG is taking me to Vancouver and Victoria for his birthday this August! I can’t wait! We spent the day driving up the coast on 1, taking the long way to Occidental, where we were an hour and a half early for Father’s Day dinner with his dad. So we stopped off in the bar across the street, had some refreshing beverages, and played Dig Dug and Ms. PacMan. The MSG got the high score in Ms. PacMan. I was duly impressed. It took us about two hours to drive home and drop off his step-cousin, who is a very neat architect I hope we get to spend more time with in the future. Now I am so exhausted that even driving a mile home is too tiring a thought for me, so I think we’ll watch a Netflix and then go to bed. We saw “The Day After...
Read Morehaiku slug
First things first: I have four more Gmail invitations to give away, so post a comment here if you want one. I’m getting about five every two days at this point. Storage update: You are currently using 13 MB (1%) of your 1000 MB. Awww yeah, baby. I am content to be a slugabed right now, at the tail end of this cold, and in the MSG‘s ever-comfy bed with a mug of Graffeo coffee. My lounging companion is more upright than me, tending to some SW:G duties, whereas I am simply mucking about while reading my RSS feeds. Shortly, we’ll venture out into the sunshine toward the farmer’s market and the rest of our day. This is the life. Good news: I got into the writer’s workshop I was so thrilled to find! The instructor and I played...
Read Morekissed off
I have been paying very close attention to music lately. Perhaps this is natural, since I am in love with someone who is in love with music. Perhaps it’s just a new phase of awareness in my life. I’ve been playing around with the Internet iTunes Registry — mm, graphs — and that was enough incentive for me to move my entire TMBG mp3 collection from my desktop (still dormant) to my laptop. Because I haven’t listened to most of my TMBG on the laptop yet, the iTunes Internet Registry thinks my favorite artist is The Cure. That was certainly true, in my sophomore year of high school. I had a brief fling with a raven-haired, left-handed boy named Nick who did a flawless Popeye impersonation. He gave me the cassette single of...
Read Moretears and email
It does no good to be sopping up tears in the middle of a library in a beautiful place. Yet I am, after reading this story. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’m listening to Télépopmusik’s “Genetic World” album under the influence of cold medicine. I wish I weren’t so ridiculously sentimental. Anyway, I really posted to say congratulations to Yahoo! Mail users, who now have 100 MB of storage for free, and 2 GB for $19.99 a year. The interface has been “improved” as well; now I have vertical lines through everything. That’s in Firefox on WinXP; I haven’t tried it out in another browser or OS yet. It’s dead slow, too. I much prefer Gmail, especially when I login to see: You are...
Read MoreNestcam
The cam was last on Friday, May 4.
Hello What
I am Halsted, a/k/a cygnoir, and I do stuff with words.
My favourite things to do with words are keeping this diary, writing stories, and organising information.
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Reading
Listening
- 39 - Explicit Version
Tenacious D
3 days, 15 hours and 53 minutes ago - To Be The Best
Tenacious D
3 days, 15 hours and 54 minutes ago - They Fucked Our Asses - Explicit Version
Tenacious D
3 days, 15 hours and 55 minutes ago
Plugging
