Confession Tuesday on the Cheep

Dear Reader:

It's been one week, three rejections, 40+ Kindle downloads and an aching back since my last confession.


Since my last confession I admit that I've come to like my Kindle. So I've counted and I have 44 eBook downloads in the past week. Of all my eBooks I've acquired, I confess that I may have only one or two I've purchased. Call me cheep, old fashion, traditionalist, or whatever you will but in have no problem paying for a real book but eBooks feel like virtual books or something. It's just hard for me to spend money for them. If it were a perfect world (admittedly my own view) you would purchase a book and receive a "real" book and an eBook file. Then when you go out into the world you could take your library with you while the real thing was still in tack ring in your own home.

For the past four weeks I've been visiting the Mobil Vegetable Market that comes every Tuesday morning into the city and parks right behind my office. I confess this has been really cool because they have had some really good stuff. Among my favorites would be the cantaloupe, blackberries and really sweet tasting Delicious apples. My wife has some things she especially likes that I pick up - avocados (yuck) and blueberries.

I love blackberries and Bing cherries.  I've enjoyed this past week snacking on both of these. I confess I could be really happy if I could just carry a container of these around everywhere to snack on as I wish.  I confess that I'm out of Bing cherries presently and I'm wishing I could pluck one into my mouth right now.

I confess that I downloaded a new book today [Four Days With Hemingway by Tom Winston] that I'd like to start reading right away but I'm in the middle of another and am trying to force myself to finish it before starting another one. I'll let you know what I think of it when I get into it.

That's it for tonight - I must confess that I'm tired and since I worked on some office work which I brought home I'm wrapping this up and going to try and unwind a bit.

The Mag 131: Detroit's Past Through The Fog

Under Windsor Bridge by Adolphe Valette

Entombed in the gritty fog

rolling under Windsor Bridge

the past hangs heavy;

smells of damp basement.

Thinking back in time I remember

how many young men crossed this bridge 

north bound to Canada 

placing themselves in a sort of purgatory

not knowing if or when they might make a return trip.

Those were dark times in America

even darker for Detroit;

smoldering nightly somewhere in the summer heat.

A big time city eating it's own young.

Cannibalizing it's inner soul. 

The decay remains evident today

in areas blackened

that have not and never will come back. 

That's what they say.

Funny thing this city, 

where peace-nicks 

flowed to Canada;

while in the heart of old Detroit

riots raged to burned out store fronts;

skeletons of Detroit made cars smoldered.

Motor city became the capital 

of civil-disobedience & of civil-unrest.

The Mag 131

Michael A. Wells 

Confession Tuesday - Kindle Edition

Tuesday has arrived... to the confessional, shall we?


Dear Reader~

I'm glad you came along. Misery loves company. Just kidding!  I don't think I have any misery to unload today but then I don't often really know how these confessions are going to go till they are over.

I am glad you did come along because every once and a while I get the impression that I'm writing to no one here. I know that is not exactly true because I confess that I do look at the site stats.  I'm not as bad as I used to be about it. Trust me, this is a good thing. You can become obsessed about such things, or so I've been told (I mean I wouldn't have any first hand knowledge of such things) by others who would know.

I am going to move for a moment from one medium (blog) to another - e-reader. I've written blog posts about them in the past and have not been especially kind to them. So, it would only be appropriate for me to confess that this weekend I got a Kindle.  Now I've had the Kindle application on my laptop and on my Blackberry. While I have used them I've never found them to be especially easy to use. I don't mean from the standpoint of technical ease but rather the matter comfort in use. My laptop for example has one of the the larger screens available on a laptop. Sitting up in bed with it to read on in the evening is not really comfortable. Trying to read from from my Blackberry isn't comfortable either. It's size makes the screen area pretty small and you have to jack up the font size so the amount of copy per page is minuscule.

I confess that I still prefer holding a real book in my hands to an e-reader but I do like my Kindle.  Yes, I confess I still have problems with the idea of paying for what seems like a file that is just born out of nowhere (cyberspace) and is there on the device. I don't get a cover with color?  Where do I have the author sign this book/ file at? 

Yes, I confess that I have discovered free books.  There may be no free lunches but there are free digital books. Of course these are not really the books on my wish list. But hey it will force me to read some pf the classics again. Okay, some of them I haven't read for the first time. I confess I still consider myself a bit of a newbie or e-reader virgin.

So while you may be reading this and think - about time, I will acknowledge that almost anyone reading this has more experience with digital books then I do. I am also interested in the process of publishing to this format. I confess that I will defer to you, the experienced digital reader for any recommendations or suggestions on how I might enhance my Kindle experience.  I mean I can't stay a virgin forever.

Unabashed

Divisions according to gender should apply only to changing-rooms and public toilets – because of natural bashfulness. In poetry, there is nothing to be ashamed of. ~ Aleksei Alekhin

Technorati Tags: quotes on poetry

The Mag 130: No Shell Game

Image by Francesca Woodman

Don' t dare look past my flesh self

ignoring what discomfort troubles you.

I've come out so that I can be everything

I truly am-   the co-worker, the mother, the friend

the wife and the lover.

I don't hide my intellect behind my body

anymore then I will shelter my flesh

with intellect or my personality.

I've shed my shell;

these breasts, the curves-

this flesh and bone

this is my architecture-

I embrace all that I am.

The Mag 

Michael A. Wells

The Nightly News I Remember

There are times I remember the nightly news
framed in a seriousness and we all watched.
I would come home from school  and the others
they came from work or household chores
but we watched in the same room
the same RCA Victor
that doubled as a piece of furniture;
topped with white lace doilies and blonde lamp-

and always a man with a voice of authority
and there would be body counts every single night.
And for the longest time this went on
and we all watched and when it was over went
our separate ways.

There was no liberal newscast or conservative choice
there was only news and it could be very brutal.

Confession Tuesday Under Cotton Candy Skies on Thursday

A storm is threatening if that is possible in this drought inflicted Midwest.  We are already a day late - let's hurry to the confessional.

Dear Reader:  I confess I know I'm a day late. It's been 8 days since my last confession so lets get this over the cotton ball sky is moving quickly.

I confess that as I gassed the car this morning and realized that gas had shot up considerably since I last gassed the car I so wanted an all electric car. Of course wanting and having the ability to obtain something are two different things. Even a gas electric hybrid is out of the picture unless that lottery ticket in my pocket is a winner. I'm really pretty good normally about not wanting things I know are beyond reach. Occasionally some electronic gadget will creep into my wanting eyesight but I mostly try and contain myself. These are usually things that I could have, I have the means available to go get one, but don't because my better wisdom says don't.

I confess that I when I learned yesterday that my daughter was likely going to put down Scarlet - her pet rat today - I spent some time just watching Scarlet and taking pictures of her last night.  She was actually pretty cute. So when I learned today that it actually occurred I admit I had some damp eyes for a rat. Okay, not just any rat but Scarlet.  Earlier this summer she lost Mason but as far as rats go I am told that Mason was an old man.

That's about it for tonight... I just realized the San Francisco Giants are on ESPN so my attention is now divided. And I guess that's a confession too.