It’s been a lovely, hot day. I spent a fair chunk of it sitting in my suntrap of a yard, doing a bit of writing and work. Then I made a cuppa and went back out with the latest Paris Review and a parasol that I bought at the music festival last year, so that I could be warm but not burn. It was far and away the most pretentious thing I’ve ever done, I think, and I can be really fecking pretentious. Continue reading “Sunshine and vaginas”
Tag: poetry
Poem for Mental Health Awareness Week
This week (12th – 18th May) is Mental Health Awareness week.
I wrote a poem, ages ago, for submission to a themed Mslexia issue. Theme: troubled minds. I didn’t get into the issue and I’ve sent the poem out unsuccessfully since then. It popped back up in my inbox yesterday, still homeless, and though I’m sure if I keep sending it out there it’ll get picked up at some point (maybe), it seemed appropriate that it’s reappeared as a free agent this week. So I’ve decided to put it up here. Continue reading “Poem for Mental Health Awareness Week”
The whiniest woman in the west
Pity me. I’ve been struck down in the prime of the bank holiday with some sort of head-achey cold hybrid monster.
I had planned to be up early this morning and run over to Brockwell Lido for a swim. Instead I’ve been lolling around feeling sorry for myself. My throat feels as though it’s got a shard of glass stuck in it, very specifically on the right hand side, at the top. My head has been banging so badly that last night I didn’t sleep at all. Instead I wasted Sunday’s daylight hours asleep on the sofa after painkillers finally kicked in. My nose is running on and off, and my skin feels super-sensitive and sore. It’s a bit of a let-down as bank holiday weekends go. Continue reading “The whiniest woman in the west”
Accepted for publication
In the organised chaos that is my computerised filing system I’ve got a folder called ‘accepted (EMPTY)’. If I really wanted to bludgeon myself over the whole attempting-to-get-stuff-in-print cycle, I’d have a rolling number in the ‘rejected’ folder title, but I’m not quite that masochistic, and I deal quite well with rejection. Continue reading “Accepted for publication”
This thing all things devours. More, please.
Today I have been writing the good write, and battling that feeling of slight disappointment that always rocks up at the end of a bank holiday. You know the feeling – the one where you did loads of stuff, like swimming, and running, and walking, and films, and gardening, and bookshop snooping, and sneaky easter egg hiding, and pretending to be a cheerleader. But not all the things you were planning to do and now really there’s only 12 hours left before the work week starts and you can’t possibly fit everything else in. Continue reading “This thing all things devours. More, please.”
Leaving on a jet plane. Or not.
Manx legend says that when Mannanan mac Lir wants to protect the Isle of Man from unwanted visitors, he throws his great cloak of mist around it so that it can’t be found. Well, last Friday morning someone on one of the flights coming in must not have been welcome, because the cloak was being used to great effect, mostly around the area of the airport. Continue reading “Leaving on a jet plane. Or not.”
“Don’t burp. Don’t fall over.”
On Thursday night, I took part in a poetry open mic night for the first time.
Stomp
Another Sunday already. We’ve reached that time of year that involves a lot of blankets and wearing gloves to type. All the running in the world isn’t going to increase my circulation to the point of warmth now we’ve hit November. On the upside, I don’t really need to paint my nails because they’re almost permanently an attractive violet-blue sort of colour. Continue reading “Stomp”
Bookworms and Coffee Monsters 