There once was a man from Nantucket

So I went to my first poetry reading last night. Well, my first one since I was a reluctant preteen being dragged along with my mom and her artsy boyfriend Doug to the New London book and lute store for what I considered to be a grotesque evening sitting around listening to old ugly people talking about rabid mournful sex and the death of the soul. Turns out, poetry reading hasn't changed too much, except now the old ugly people teach my Wednesday Critical Methods class and I now have the pleasure of putting faces to those images of rabid mournful sex. The thing about being an outsider at a poetry reading is that obviously everyone there knows one another and when they look at you and smile, it's a mistake and they quickly realize that you are not the person they thought. Secondly, they always laugh at what I consider hugely inappropriate times. "My mother's lungs fill with darkening clouds and I hate her perfume and poppy stockings." This is apparently comic genius, only I'm the stupid one in the room who doesn't get it. Overall, I'm glad it wasn't longer. Now I have to write a paper about my response to the reading and I only hope that I can get away with a two-pager on how I don't fucking get it.

Sad is the beetle on the rapid flight of angry frequency.
And yet.

Commentphobia

I am one of the unluckly and rare few that suffer from the rare and often undiagnosed Internet-related disorder of Commentphobia. Commentphobia is defined simply as a "fear of commenting on well-written blogs." The most common symptom is a frequent authoring of comments without publishing any of them, usually due to fears of ridicule from writers and bloggers who are much funnier than you. I suffer an acute case of this, having offered literally dozens of comments that I never post.

In truth, I really do have a problem with commenting. I try to comment all the time, but I end up thinking that what I've written is either only funny to me, or might even be considered offensive. So after hitting the Preview button 6 or 7 times, I decide that the comment isn't good enough and ultimately delete it. Maybe I should just let them stand, but I just cant seem to get myself to publish them.

So for New Year's this year, I think my new resolution will be to post my comments no matter what. You have to face your fears, right? I'm willing to face this one, so long as I don't have to face my far more serious fear of spiders.

I know, it seems silly to fear such "harmless" creatures like arachnids, but stop and think about them for a minute: 8 legs, bunches of eyes, the ability to scale walls and ceilings, and silk shooting out of their asses...and no one else is the slightest bit concerned about what they plan to do with that kind of evolutionary sophistication? As for their "small" size, I ask you: would they name one of them the Goliath Bird-Eating Spider if they weren't HUGE???

Ok, so maybe I got off the subject of commenting, but now I have to stop typing since I keep having to look up every 5 seconds to make sure an army of Goliaths aren't descending upon me from the ceiling..

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Please Help Katrina Victims

I'm sure by now anyone reading this has seen the horrible devastation and subsequent anarchy that has descended upon New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It goes without saying that they need all the help they can get. If you haven't donated to any relief organizations yet, you can click the link below (or the title of this post) to go to the Red Cross collection page. Please given anything you can; they needed help days ago, and certainly they will need help for months to come.

To donate to the Red Cross, click here.

My anger at the incompetence and lack of organization on the government's part will be saved for another post. For now, please help them if you can.