galveston

i have this new idea that i should title my blogs by the name of the book that i'm reading, that way i'll sound cool, poetic, and somewhat cryptic - dare i say enigmatic...?
so actually i just finished reading "galveston" by paul quarrington (writer of the book 'whale music'...) and i really liked it. it had a lot of the qualities i'd been looking for in a book lately. good prose - the kind where you occasionally pause to reread something especially nice. also it was recommendable, maybe not universally recommendable, but i would certainly recommend it. it was pleasantly quirky that's for sure. some laughter, some tears. vibrant characters... decent sex scenes... yeah good book. now what am i gonna read? how am i even gonna make it work with nothing to read on the streetcar? doh. also i picked up a self-help book by barbara sher called 'i could do anything if i only knew what it was'. seems to fit the bill huh...

in other news...well there's not much other news really. it's monday night... i can't believe it's only monday night... still can't play any basketball (stupid formerly good knee still hurts)

i made us a couch on sunday out of our old foam mattress and a futon frame. yay. now sarah can sew a cover of some kind and then we can get rid of the ugly couch. the new couch is very comfortable.

hmmm...i guess that's all i got for now. maybe i'm forgetting something, but of course i could just post again later...

and a little poetry for mere

the cinnamon peeler by michael ondaatje (from 'running in the family' - closest thing i got to a very favourite book maybe...)

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain fo whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

*

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume
and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.