9 to 5 Poet

Yesterday, I had a very full day and it was a day off.  I walked around a lake close to my home, I watched a disc of Season One of 30 Rock (hilarious!), worked on some things for work.  Once my husband came home, we went out to dinner and we watched the entire Clinton-Obama debate.  (Gosh, I’d wish they’d come up with some new issues).  Then, I went to bed. 

As I was falling asleep, I thought to myself, what am I going to write for nanapoopoo tomorrow?  Then, I thought harder, what I am going to write for today?  I had totally forgotten to write anything. I was paralyzed with indecision.  Do I rouse myself from half-sleep to get in a poem?  Do I say screw it and go to bed? 

My Capricornian tendencies towards duty won out and I stumbled from bed.  I wrote perhaps the worst haiku ever (it isn’t even a full thought) and went back to sleep. But dang it, it was 17 syllables, 3 lines, and close enough to call a poem. 

Wake me when NaPoWriMo is over. 

I’ve continued my somewhat unintentional foray into reading food literature with my most recently finished book, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (352 pages).  Her memoir follows her family’s year-long experiment of eating only local vegetables, fruits, and meat products.  It is interspersed with environmental science and nutrition and culinary sidebars from her husband Steven L. Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver, respectively.

I feel conflicted about this book.  I have been a huge fan of Kingsolver’s since I was a teenager, and in this book, she has continued her lushly lyrical and descriptive style.  She won me over with descriptions of bountiful vegetable harvests and comical turkey mating.  (Really, I look at birds a whole lot differently now.)  I was also impressed with the way her family jumped into this experiment, and resourcefully planned for their eating needs without a dependence on big grocery stores or restaurants. 

However, there are times when Kingsolver lectures a bit too much.  Especially in the beginning, I felt like I was sitting in Fossil Fuels 101 or Introduction to Industrial Farming Practices. Perhaps I am slightly more educated on these matters than the average reader after working at a culinary school for three years.  (I’ve read a lot of term papers on just these issues.)  For me, these forays into informative style disrupted the narrative of the story, especially since we already had sidebars on these very topics. 

Depsite these feelings, Kingsolver’s story won out and I burned through this book very quickly.  Besides, I think her lecturing might have worked. If we can secure it,  my husband and I are going to buy a Community Supported Agriculture share in a local farm.  

Total For 2008: 2702 pages
Genres: Memoir (3), Essay (1), Graphic Novel (1), Non-Fiction (2), Poetry (3), Comic Book Anthology (1)