The past few days

...just blew by. Or was it a plastic bag? I could spend the rest of my life in the trees, removing plastic shopping bags. And maybe I should. Anyhow, here's a partial list of what I've been occupied and preoccupied with over the past few days. I might add to the list as the day goes on.

• I dealt with the pile of email that had accumulated while I was away.
  
  
• I fought with occasional verse. I wrote a sonnet. Actually, it was more of a battle. I struggled with it into the early hours. I struggled with it in my sleep, slept poorly because of it, and continued the struggle early the next morning. However, the sonnet, and my trouble with it, led to a very helpful chat on occasional verse. During that chat, we talked briefly about "On Poems and Occasions," a section on occasional verse in The New Quarterly, issue 100. I mentioned that there was a sentence in the section that had left me feeling incapable of pulling off a decent occasional poem, but I couldn't locate the issue at the time of the chat. Eventually I found it. I thought the sentence was in Amanda Jernigan's essay, but it's from "Grace Notes: Notes and Poems by Peter Sanger," which rounds out the section. It's Sanger's first note: "The defining crux of a poet: whether he or she can write a poem of occasion with conviction and inspiration."
  
  
• I read a consideration of truth and science.
  
  
• I accepted a kind invitation to Facebook. I dipped my toes in for a day, enjoyed its easiness, bathed in all the faces, then pulled the plug.
  
  
• I watched Ottawa win!
  
  
• I worked on a slow growing sequence of poems.
  
  
• I learned that Dawkins will be on The Hour tomorrow night.
  
  
• I read a couple of lengthy, excellent essays in the two issues of Canadian Notes & Queries that showed up while I was away. "Somewhere Below Memory: The Poetry of Don Coles" by David O'Meara (CNQ 70) and "Jabbed With Plenty: Peter Van Toorn and the Canadian Condition" by Zachariah Wells (CNQ 69). The latter was especially engaging as I have Van Toorn's Mountain Tea, a great book, and I've read a number of the sources for the article. Thus I was able to nod, raise my eyebrows and shake my head as I read along.
  
  
• I found a great new song for my cardio workout. Perfect song for a writer.