Slightly Off the Mark

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

My fiancée is taking a poetry class this year, so I, being a writer, decided to take a crack at writing poetry myself.

Why didn’t someone stop me?

Thank goodness I’m better at prose. Thank goodness Emily is better at poetry, or she’d be scoring a big fat goose egg, which rhymes with … I don’t know, something.

My understanding has always been that poetry is writing that’s short and structured and rhymes, while prose just rambles on, the way I do. However, it turns out that poetry doesn’t always rhyme, and some poems have gone on to book lengths. There are, in fact, many dozens of types of poetry, from Haiku to Jintishi. I thought Jintishi was a condition related to liver damage from too much drinking, but no.

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I'm so sore I actually had to miss a house fire Wednesday. Remember, kids: When you swing a sledge hammer, it has an effect not only on what you hit, but on the swinger. Between my back, my tennis elbow (seriously? Seriously?) and muscle aches, all I have to be thankful for is that the low pressure system moved on and relieved my sinuses.

I'm going on vacation for a week, if you can call it that. As soon as I'm a bit less hurting -- or probably sooner, as time is a factor -- I'll be mostly skipping the internet and concentrating on getting outside stuff done before we return to fall weather. I've got a home to winterize, trees and bushes to trim, a garage to clean, and a pile of chimney debris to haul away from the house, among other things. Charis' fiancee is coming over to help (by which I mean he knows how to do it) replace the chimney, probably with a forced air system, so I can turn the furnace on without getting carbon monoxide poisoning.

Meanwhile, my house appraised for less than I'd hoped, so although my home refinancing has been approved, I may not be able to get enough to pay for the roof replacement and other work that were assumed to be getting done by the appraiser as part of his estimate. Bit of a Catch-22, there -- we're working on it. Gotta work faster if I'm to avoid another winter of taking unwanted showers in the kitchen.

So, yeah ... I'll be busy. What's new? and then -- back to writing.

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