For a while (and thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) I’ve wanted to re-read Jack London’s Call of the Wild in its original unabridged form. The last time I read it was pre-high school, so I wanted to experience it again, with fresher eyes and a better mind.

I was not displeased. I like his writing style and the story, though short, was engrossing. It IS however, very depressing. I’m sensitive to animal abuse, and it is full of hardship and cruelty. Next on my list of classic literature to indulge in is Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome.

I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing. Along with playing music they’re cathartic, and with all of the things bouncing around my obsessive little head I desperately need some kind of release. And this is how it comes out. Pen scribbles and pounding out tunes.

I write a lot of non-fiction, free verse and light verse. I have trouble with fiction, because I have some kind of mental block when it comes to making things up, for lack of better words. Many times the root of a poem comes from a phrase that pops into my head, then I obsessively rhyme it until it becomes something I’m happy with. Like the recent light verse I wrote…

“Luster”

The gloss is off

And I loathe to say

The love of before

Is the regret of today.

And I’m happy with it being short. I feel it doesn’t need any more expression than that. I read a lot of WH Auden, and I think I seem to follow his style more than the other writers that inspire me.

Sometimes I have bouts of hypergraphia, and nothing will quiet my brain until it’s written down. One of my particular OCD quirks. Sometimes I have a line, or a subject but can’t develop it to a point where I’m happy. Like the phrase, “what would you wear to scare the thing that scares you?” is something I need to expound upon, but it’s a piece that’s still in artistic limbo… sad thing.

And then there’s my love affair with words. I love to study words and foreign languages. I’d love to get a degree in theoretical linguistics, but the closest U. is Ivy League, and I doubt I’d make it past the application process.

Now I just need to have the piano tuned…