Monthly Archives: May 2009

Recouping from My Sister’s Wedding!

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Well, we are recovering!

These last few days have been so long and so short.

Here is a summary:

Friday I left at about 7:30 in the morning and stopped in Greensboro to drop off a gift for my nephew Thomas with my in-laws. I had a chance to grab a mini bagel and a soda, as well as a nice chat, before heading over to Raleigh to pick up my sister and brother from the airport.

Brad and Nina both had flights that were on time so we got out of the airport in a timely matter.  We then picked up Subway for us and our cousin Sara and her kids but managed to get lost after having used GPS and my printed Google maps.  Why did it take us so long to call the person we were trying to visit? I don’t know.

We had a great but short visit before we had to make it across the state over to Edenton for the rehearsal dinner.  We dropped Nina and Brad at the rehearsal dinner and I picked up my other brother and his wife so we could eat and begin organizing the reception area at the church.

We got a lot of stuff done on Friday night and then went back to where we were staying at my Aunt Nina’s in Chesapeake where we then prepped food for quite a while.  We were sooo tired and I ended up on several blankets on the floor because we had so many people but it actually wasn’t that bad :)

Even with the exhaustion we all got up before 7 and then we took Edna over to our cousin Tammy’s salon to get Edna’s hair and make up done.  We had to desert her so we could get to the church and finish setting up and prepping the food.

Made the hour and a half drive with some drive thru McDonalds and we got it finished with the help of the best woman’s sister. I think my pictures came out pretty well and hopefully the bride and groom get to enjoy them!

Things got really busy at 1:30 as we only had 30 minutes before the wedding! The wedding was very nice, the only hiccup was we forgot to give everyone their flowers but it was very nice service and we had a lovely reception. Although the food was already gone by the time we were done with a few photos!

I’ve been pretty good but I did have two slices of cake.  Ah red velvet chocolate cake with fondant type icing.

After the clean up we picked up BBQ at Southland on our way back to Chesapeake and then hit the internet. My photos are uploaded (well most of them) and hopefully tomorrow I’ll get to work on the video editing portion.

The family that webs together, stays together right?

netnerds

Link to facebook album (you don’t have to be on facebook for the wedding pictures)

You Know Anyone Who Wants to Take a Class?

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I’ve been wanting to set up a class for quite some time but I’ve had WAY too much going on.  I’ve now, however, booked the room so do you know anyone in the Charlotte area who might like to attend a class? If so, please let them know about the one below:

Jump Start Your Summer – Get Writing!

Tuesday June 16th from 7-8pm in the Upstairs Meeting Room of Joseph Beth Booksellers

$10 Fee. Email jessie.carty@gmail.com for more info

Do you have a writing project that you need to start?  Do you want to write but your not sure where to start?  Just want to talk about writing? Then this session is for you! Special Jumpstart Your Summer Writing Fee of $10 per person for this one hour session of writing craft and prompts.

Your teacher is poet, writer, editor and publisher Jessie Carty who received her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. Jessie is also the author of a chapbook At the A & P Meridiem as well as other published poems and essay. She is also the Founding Editor of Folded Word Press and Shape of a Box.

So feel free to share! I also have a flyer I can email around if anyone wants :)

First person who is in the area and volunteers to be my secretary/money taker will get to take the class free!

MFA Readings at Queens

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I should have updated more about this earlier in the week but I have been running around like a chicken with my head half on trying to get things done at home before heading out on Friday to my sister’s wedding in good old Edenton, NC.  I won’t be back till Monday late so it is really putting a divot into my normal schedule.

But, that being said, here is what is left of events at Queens this week for the MFA residency (all events in Sykes Auditorium):

  • Tonight at 5pm student readings, at least one poet is up tonight. I should be at this!
  • Thursday 5pm student readings.  8:30 at least one poet reading. Hope to attend this.
  • Friday. 5pm student readings. 8:15 faculty readings by Robert Polito – poet and non-fiction writer and Jane Allison Fiction writer if I recall correctly. I will miss everything this weekend :(
  • Saturday graduation 5pm

Don’t know how much time I will have to post over the coming days but I’ll do my best, and hopefully I’ll also have some time for some poetry!

Video Tuesday

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First is this weeks issue of Shape of a Box. Issue 33. Click here to watch the video with text in the side bar or just watch below:

Then my weekly vlog about weight loss. First video is weigh-in and grocery shopping:

2nd video covers what the rest of the week was like, I felt it needed to be documented so even though I had too much footage I wanted to post it.  I also talk about one of the diets I’ve been on–Jenny Craig:

And then my continuing journey off the deep end into a third video where I further go into trigger foods and the shame spiral of falling off the wagon:

Also, I put up a video from the montly Charlotte Writers Club meeting. The club will meet again starting in September:

And then to finish up, I sought out another video about poetry to post, I need to make some more of o my own!:

First Residency I’m not IN

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Well residency week began at Queens yesterday. *sigh* It is bittersweet to think about it.  I am very much glad that I finished the program but I can’t help thinking about the seminars and the people and how much wonder there is in sitting around talking about the craft of writing with like minded people.

That being said, I don’t miss the workshopping intensity!

I do plan on stopping by campus several times this week.  My first stop will be tomorrow, I think, for graduate student readings. I’ll probably be there for the 8:15 session, but I wonder if I should stop by and pick anyone up for dinner? hmmm

Speaking of dinner.  One of my oldest (in years known not age!) friends was flying into Charlotte last night from a conference and we went out to get a bite to eat.  It wasn’t a terribly weight loss friendly meal but we both knew that and still had a great time. Can’t wait to drive down to see her again sometime soon.

Monday is still laundry day even if it is Memorial Day.

And avoid the Concord area day because the race was delayed last night because of all the rain.

I mentioned, on Facebook, that I am selling my DSLR Canon EOS XT Rebel. 8MP camera with all manuals, rechargable battery, UV filter, polarizing filter for $300. Few scratches on the body- maybe- but lenses are perfect, due in part to the fact that the UV filter has been protecting so long you’d have to pry it off :) . Selling for $350 on average on ebay. I have two people with potential interest but thought I’d also mention it here.  My Japan trip photos were taken with that camera.

We also have a 34 inch HD Tube TV (Sony) and stand that we’d be willing to sell if anyone is interested. It ways a TON so you’d have to come get it! And we also have an older DirecTV DVR available.

Craigs list my blog :)

Book Round-Up

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The weekend always seems to be a time when I finish up books.  Towards this weekend I finished a few I will note, and some I will not note (don’t tend to note the ones – especially poetry books – that I was less than interested in).

On the fiction side (or almost non-fiction) completed What is the What by Dave Eggers. It actually took me a while to get into this book because I was having trouble with the voice of the main character, I made the mistake of reading the back of the book first and won’t go into details about how this through me off, but after about 25 pages I was in.  Great read, sad but yet uplifting.

In non-fiction I finished The Omnivores Delimma by Michael Pollan which was a fascinating read, although there were a few momements where he actually repeated himself–oops editorial staff! But, I am very interested in this whole idea of how to eat healthier, and more locally.  It definitely has the potential to put you off eating meat.

On the poetry side I read, very quickly and enjoyably, Take Heart by Molly Peacock.  Just before AWP, I first read about Molly Peacock and how she wrote about her childhood and dealing with an alcoholic parent.  I want to get some of her non-fiction as well because she is a fearless writer.  She is able to take the dark side of things and really writes about them in a new way, yet also using formal trappings. Just amazing.  I was too chicken to go up and speak to her when she was signing one of her books at AWP. I am SOOO lame.

My current stack of books are: Odd Hours by Dean Koontz (graphic novel), The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (fiction), a non-fiction writing book by Bret Lott, a chapbook from the Poetry Society of America (not in front of me for title), a 2008 issue of The Greensboro Review lit mag and The Fractured World by Scott Owens (poetry).

And, unless something changes, I get to see one of my oldest and dearest friends and fellow poets tonight :)

The Long Poem

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Ok. I might sound like I am talking out of both sides of face (or out of my ass, whatever) but I have a hard time reading long poems.  That being said – I seem to be writing them lately.

How do I define a long poem?  To me, a long poem is one that goes over into a second printed page and/or further. And I’m thinking of an standard 8 x 11 sheet of paper here, not necessarily book size.

I  know to some people that length isn’t even long, but to me it is.  I read a lot of novels,  non-fiction along with my poetry so it’s not like I can’t read long work it is just, with poetry, even as a poet, I find longer works – at times – tedious (and screw good sentence construction here!)

I won’t name specific ones that are boring, but I find the only ones that work – for me – in long form are of a narrative nature.  I read “Sharp Teeth” by Toby Barlow which was a verse novel and was a work I not only found myself breezing through but loving.

The ones that don’t seem to work for me are those too lyric in nature, and they seem to be ones with lots of allusions and references to other poets or art etc..Perhaps they are too intellectual.  Which, in some ways, seems kind of a funny thing for me to say given that I used to consider myself a bit of an academic and/or intellectual.  I was an honor student and certified nerd, but yet – I want to be interested – I don’t need to just seem how clever you are.

So, I find that my new poems are definitely longer that what I am used to writing. And, they are draining.  I have ideas burbling around in my head, but yet I’m almost scared of the page and how long it will take me to get those thoughts down, even jsut in the initial draft. And for me, that means the poems have true length potential because I usually expand the poems when I start typing them up.

Even right now, I have the desire to write something today.  I’m not sure yet what it will be or what world I will be stepping into, but it is one that takes more and more of my time. I shall go try and walk there :)