waiting and wandering

[gurdonark]

We're moving our offices to larger quarters, so I had to spend a portion of my morning during an initial walk through thinking about things that don't come naturally to me, like "is this straight" and "what size table fits here".
Now I'm watching the clouds outside my current office, grayish without quite foreboding storms.
I feel as though a busy summer is ahead, and I'm quite eager to meet it and take it for tandoori buffet.

Last night I was reviewing some books in which my wife collected all my old writings. What an incredibly thoughtful thing for her to have done--I had not focused on just what was in there, but it's almost everything I've written in the last
21 years. As a person who takes some modest pride in the generically low quality of my free verse, I should not invoke the critical eye on my past, but I'm amazed at how much more I knew at 21 than I know at 42, and how much my poetry suffered then as a result. Still, I see several things I can use to finish out Gerbil Theology, so laziness will make it a retrospective.

I have bids up on ebay auctions for things I want and don't need. Let's see what happens.

Comments

[inushnu.livejournal.com]

which my wife collected all my old writings <-- thats so pamala morrison from the movie "the doors"... you know... where he ruined the duck and she sat on the floor trippin acid and going through all his writing crying and saying how he really should organize them because they are just so good...

well.. close anyway.. hehe :P

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

When I read some of the things I wrote 20 years ago, I mainly think that I'm glad I make my living as a lawyer.

Re:

[inushnu.livejournal.com]

dude. I love lawyers. (i am not flirting here :) I just think you guys are HOTHOTHOT!

I seriously think it is a fetish because all the men I have slept with who have been lawyers have ROCKED MY EVERLIVIN WORLD.

Fact.

;) Ur wife b a lucki gurl :P

don't feel bad about EBAY

[yulbrynner.livejournal.com]

The occasional frivolous purchase makes life fun. Its the pattern that gets you in trouble. I figure I'm good for 2 a year. (trying to rationalize my guitar purchase)

What do you mean you knew more at 21? I was looking forward to the day when I knew everything...

ps - I was thinking about an entry of yours last week in which you lamented the fact that you can't give more back to the community. Considering all the help you have given me in the past months, I say you are selling yourself, and your impact on the community at large, short. So, thanks.

Re: don't feel bad about EBAY

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

What a nice thing for you to say. thank you.
I actually did a bit more follow up on that post, and signed up for the local monthly pro bono poverty law clinic. I enjoy the vault
stuff, too, but I'm thinking it's time to write my ideas in an ebook and just get it posted someplace, as my comments there have become a bit repetitive....

[burninggirl.livejournal.com]

...I'm amazed at how much more I knew at 21 than I know at 42...

Like what exactly? As a twenty-one-year-old, this statement both encourages and intrigues me.

things I knew at 21....

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

At 21, I wrote a long (93 pages) draft of an autobiographical reflections. I'm really glad that I did--I recommend to everyone that they write what they believe and who they when they are 21. It makes a nice keepsake. The work is filled with would be bold and would be comic statements. Here are a few:

"A caveat--when an author proclaims a great hope for literature---beware!".

"You see, I think marriage is a mystical thing. I think that union of two beings
is a beautiful idea. I don't think it is an experience of spirit to be limited to six month excursions".

"There are more denominations of Communism than of the Protestant Church. Well, almost".

"London is, of course, the diesel smell of the taxi exhausts".

"In Southwark there is a sunken cathedral.
Literally. It was in its own little hole,
just five feet below the rest of the neighborhood".

The whole 93 pages is filled with pronouncements, descriptions of the meaning of life, and grand touristic reflections.

21 years later, my flights of fancy are a bit less pronounced. My poetry is probably a little better now as a result. But life is so *vivid* when one is 21. That is what you must treasure....the sheer fabric and vividness
that youth provides.

[nancyjane.livejournal.com]

it is interesting how talents get somehow clouded with age. i don't think they go away, i think somehow, for me at least, i've just become more inhibited.

whenever i'm waiting in the doctor's office, i read the highlights magazine for kids, and there are always two pages called Our Own Pages, which have poetry and drawings by kids, sometimes very short stories. Some of the most clever, insightful or touching things i've ever read have been in highlights lololol

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

My dad is a country doctor. When I was a kid, the highlight of a visit to his office was reading highlights magazine. I loved that stuff.