(no subject)

This is Jo's fault. You're supposed to post a poem in your journal.

( Brecht )

Oh dog, the world is sometimes as good as it ought to be. Looky here, the most seminal book of my childhood is online, and I found it looking for the other bit of poetry I wanted to post: Schvambrania!!

The poetry bit is ultimately Mayakovsky:

"But the earth still turns-if you
don't believe me, sit on your
very own buttocks-and
slide!"
Mayakovsky

Which is not how I remembered it.

Everybody go read Schvambrania now.

How wet am I?

How am I wet? Let me count the ways.
I am wet in my hair, which has been washed.
I am wet to my skin, which has been soaked deep in a clawfoot tub.
I am wet with the waters of the Woodrow Avenue storm drain.
I am wet with two hours of light rain blown in across the Monterey Bay.
I am wet with the slurry spit out by my tile saw as I cut over a hundred tiles at a forty-five degree angle.
(not a sonnet, oh well. Maybe I'll return to it if I want to waste time later)


What I have learned about the cheap tile saw (I call it my "easy-bake" tile saw because it looks like a toy):
The bed is not by any stretch of the imagination made of stainless steel. It rusts if you look at it.
The water reservoir must be topped up after every second cut.
The pusher must be cleaned and oiled after every third cut.
The slurry will build up to an eighth of an inch in the water reservoir in about twenty cuts.
The tile saw runs best when it is spitting water at the greatest rate.
The tile saw will spit lots and lots of water all the time.
The floor will get wet. No amount of towels will prevent this.
I will get wet. I will get soaked to the skin within ten minutes of operation.
I will never figure out how to prevent all chips and funkinesses.

I will live with all these things.