To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn

So.... I have decided to resuscitate my blog but it required a minor change. I'm not sure that I will be able to post so often, but will try. Writing poetry as bad as mine is not so easy as it looks my friends. So now that I am back home I am not going to keep myself to the rigidity of sonnet form solely. I will use other exciting forms of poetry. Here is a little haiku for you. It has a winter theme. Enjoy.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I feel snowed Susan.
End of student life draws near,
Just as the bell chimes.

Sonnet XI

Whew... did I ever slack on this one. I meant to post this entry oh... about a month ago. Sorry. Not that anyone is probably still reading my blog. So... I thought I would finally write a sonnet about my place of work, simplehuman. It is a great place to work, especially because it is so unique. As evidenced by my sonnet about its location, Goring. Anyhow, our little office consisted of me (well, not anymore, but at the time this sonnet was penned), Leeanne (her surname is Strange, so any references are not meant to be derogatory), John S., Brad, John P., and Kevin.

To Serve Man 1
Our office space is a little folksy.
We make steel bins and dishracks efficient.
Your calls are met by Leeanne's "Okey Cokey,"
A Strange Brit who loves Lionel and Legend.

Each day she teaches John of proper tea
As he works to settle accounts and bad debt.
If this were Brooklyn, Flaco he would be
And Brad, El Chino, she Roja, I bet. 2

Many days were spent emailing to Joe
with revisions to dot co dot uk
And fighting with Satan, my silent foe,
"Sam why don't you call me?" I often would say. 3

The jokes of John and Kev could ne'er offend,
Nor simple plaints of humans that we tend.

1. Okay, so I broke form yet again. All of my other titles have alluded to poetry or major works of prose, but I think the Twilight Zone is pretty poetic. Especially this episode.
2. My job before school was at Cumberland Packing Corp., in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Most of the people I worked with spoke Spanish as their first language. They love to nickname people based on their appearance (e.g., Flaco is "skinny", Roja would be "red," and El Chino would be "the Chinese").
3. Joe was the web designer I worked with, Satan... another person I worked with who shall remain nameless, and Sam was a buyer at a British department store chain.

Sonnet X

Alright, no more avoiding actual sonnet production. Finally, here is the latest proper entry. Not last weekend but the weekend before (I'm a little behind but I intend to write like the Dickens in the next couple days...) I went to Dublin. It was very fun, but very whirlwind. I got on the train from work to head to the airport and realized I had forgotten my passport. Doh. I went home, picked it up, headed back for the airport (and this interlude was not as easy as it sounds) and missed my flight. It was on Ryanair. As Niamh says, Ryanair are a bunch of bastards. And British airports don't work like American ones. None of this straightforward, go to the counter, they'll help you out stuff. There are multiple counters, and some move, and it was generally an extremely frustrating experience culminating in the purchase of the Most Expensive Ryanair Flight Ever. But at least I had a wonderful time in Ireland with Joe and his cousins, Helena, Niamh, and Aisling. And I maybe lost about two years of my life over this weekend due to lack of sleep and abundance of drink...

The Late Aisle is Not Free, or An Immodest Proposal

I nearly lost my mind when I realized
I'd left my passport back in Littlemore.
In Dublin hap'ly hitched Helena's ride
Post butting heads with Ryanair 'till sore.

The daytime passed quickly with all we saw.
The library's must smelled like an old friend;
The bog people inspired a gasp in awe
And Guinness pouring down my throat: sweet end.

The nights' activities were livers' test,
As tipsily we walked over our host
To Dakota, through Leggs and more (I guess)1
The fog cleared by Manhattan's eggs and toast

When finally I lay my body down
My dreams fondly recalled this bumpin' town.

1. Leggs was definitely one of the more random stops we made. It is a wine bar that is open late night. It has cheap wine that costs alot of euros, and everyone is walking around the bar with several bottles of this cheap wine.

Entr'acte

Will write a sonnet ASAP, but saw this posting and thought it was so cool I had to share (especially because it goes with my Alice in Wonderland theme below). From coolhunting.com:

To celebrate the MINI Cooper and its British heritage UK agency Profero created a Follow the White Rabbit banner ad campaign. Starting on sites like Urban Junkies click-thrus on the MINI banner ad take you on a fascinating random tour of British culture sites—the white MINI staying with you through the journey. Start Here.

If you are bored, do it multiple times & you will get multiple random fun sites. Like settleforbrian.com. I actually thought about emailing him to ask if he wanted to be my friend just because I thought his site was so clever. And then I wondered if I were somehow still drunk from last night. Anyway, here's an excerpt:

So let's be clear here. You are not going to marry a guy who looks like Colin Farrell, is tough but sensitive, smart, funny, charms every room he's in, and pulls in the big bucks. I know you really want to meet that guy. I wish you could find him. I really do. But there's only like 4 of those guys in the world, and they're already taken. I'm sorry to tell you this, but it's time to think about settling.

Sonnet IX

I alluded to the pedophile bike way back when, so now I will finally actually write a sonnet about it. The bike I am now using was Brad's ex-girlfriend's when she visited last summer. Maryn is about half my size, though, and apparently likes her bikes to be small, too. We refer to it as the pedophile bike because it looks like it should be ridden by an eight year old. Jessica pointed out that all it needs are those little streamers coming off of the handles to complete the whole theme. But, it works, and strangely enough, no one seems to want to steal it.

Jabberwocky 1

On bike with wheels the size of two hedgehogs
I'm quick as crawlies high on opium.
Three "gears" I shift, observers all agog;
No bursts of speed, nor any respite, come.

Whilst slogging over High Street I observe
The many pairs of eyes all looking on
In question or pity, I can't be sure.
Did I eat cake, or she drink some potion?

Although we appear a curious pair
I cannot deny our special friendship
As bravely over Queen's Lane she does bear
Me past mad coaches to go on train trips.

I can't believe when her chain was unclapped
No carpenters attempted a kidnap.

1. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, both supposedly written for a little girl, attended Christ Church college in Oxford, like Jessica, and he was a don there.

Sonnet VIII

This weekend I attended the V Festival at Hylands Park, a two day long concert with IMO a really cool line-up. The acts I saw: Orson, The Cardigans, Keane, Beck, Radiohead, Fatboy Slim, the Dandy Warhols, Gomez, Matisyahu, Starsailor, Morrissey, Groove Armada, and a little bit of the Divine Comedy, Paolo Nutini, The Charlatans, The Feeling, The Delays. And we danced some to DJ's as well. Yes, so, I was really tired at the end of said weekend. Pictures will be posted shortly - just have to get them from Joe, the only one of us who brought his camera. Some things I learned:

1. Beck and Morrissey are just inherently, innately cool in their beings. Beck's act involved marionettes dressed like him and his band on a little stage that did the exact act they did and had a very funny video montage of said puppets "behind the scenes" at the V Festival. What is funnier than puppets propositioning women and visiting port-a-potties? Morrissey was dressed all in black and his band in all white suits without shirts. That is hot. And his backdrop was a huge picture of Oscar Wilde.
   
2. Wellies are the bomb and give you a bizarre sense of well-being when playing in mud. They also make you a really good dancer.
3. Virgin is made up of evil marketing geniuses that can bleed you dry of all your money and you will smile and ask for more. Examples: a "parking pass" that comes with your very expensive festival tickets but then - surprise - turns out to require a 10 quid payment when you arrive; a festival lineup and venue that are very lengthy and confusing but, again, no publication of said lineup or map of venue is made available to you without another 10 quid investment from you. However, these Virgin people are not operational geniuses by any means, and this festival, if experienced by Kumar Rajaram, would inspire a flurry of overhead projections with process maps and various qeueing possibilities.
4. People are filthy animals when isolated for a couple days with only port-a-potties and various mind altering substances on which to subsist. And I would like to give a quick shoutout to the guy who urinated next to me while we were standing around waiting for Radiohead to start, our chav-ish football hooligan neighbors who blasted radio 1 at ungodly hours of the morning, and the overly amorous couple in the tent next to us. Thanks for making the festival even more memorable.

Endymion (For Music)1

We pitched our tents on high lands. Clouds pour'd down
So we did shower pounds upon the shop
And Cosy Camper's funky wellies found;
Gazebo, chairs, and ponchos were our crop.

We whet palates with Red Bull, vodka, beer;
Thus fortified we sailed o'er waves of grain
And entered harbors beat by deep waves clear;
The diverse sounds, rhythmic, entrancing, rained.

Ears Beckoned by puppets with humor dry
And pipes blew keen notes deep from iron lungs.
Tents sheltered sparks that when stoked did flame high;
hymns fanned, and Dirty Harry, touch of sun.2

We hung it up, the DJ, hats, V Fest;
To bathe post days long revelry is bless't.

1. Wilde's poem alludes to that of Keats.
2. These two lines refer to the Puma stage, which was housed in a big circus tent and was where we saw Matisyahu, Fatboy Slim (who ended with a cool mash-up of the Gorrillaz song Dirty Harry and his Praise You), and Groove Armada.

Sonnet VII

Everyone keeps asking me about my internship. I just can't imagine why. At any rate, I thought I would work up to a sonnet about simplehuman with one about my daily drive to simplehuman's office in Goring-On-Thames, a cute sleepy little village in south Oxfordshire. Picturesque, certainly. Bustling metropolis, certainly not. Each day we tend to see some repeating characters whilst riding along in Brad's BMW, like the roadkill that seems quite prolific in England or the guy on his motorcycle wearing all his high visibility (aka day-glo) gear that is so popular in this country. There is a trio of silver Mercedes' that sit parked in our parking lot that are owned by the Peruvian Connection people (no joke, that is the name of their business; I guess they didn't even want to try to dispel the sketchiness). Across the street is Jan-Marie bakery where we eat often since there is not much choice. And of course, Golden Balls roundabout. Brits just seem to have a good sense of humor, don't they?

The BavarianMotorWorkotica

With morn's curtain I don my day's costume.
Our chariot alights for Goring town
And slowly characters their marks assume.
The scene is set by Golden Balls turn 'round.

The divo takes the stage on his white steed,
His high vis vest aglow in sun's bright wash.
Next Road Kill One and Two, no lines to read.
The fox and hound's direction: "Just look squash'd."

The final act takes place on quaint small paths;
The silver Benz perform our journey's taps.
Facade of Jan-Marie, who'll break our fast,
Appears as over cobblestones we clap.

The jasmine takes its bow in gentle breeze.
Thus ends the matinee; next, Zoo Story.