You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
I guess it’s a good day for web finds.
I just found this online poetry journal, Jacket, that promises to be, at the least, a very interesting read. All the previous “issues” are linked at the top of the page, archived for your liberal perusal.
The feature in the newest issue, Jacket 33, is a collective book review of Brenda Hillman’s Pieces of Air in the Epic, out last month in paperback. Twent-Four authors give a short review that focuses on one of the poems in the book. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
I don’t have too much time tonight to look at it more closely. I’ll work up a more experienced impression later.
In my search for new books for possible review, I came across this great website. Small Press Distribution Books Online maintains an ongoing catalog of books (poetry, fiction, etc.) from “500+ Independent Presses!”
So if you can’t find that book from an “underrepresented literary community” that you’ve been dying to read, you should probably look here. It might not be at Amazon, and it definitely won’t be at your local Borders or Barnes & Noble.
Many thanks to Chad for recommending this website. The RegnYouth Archives offers up free music from a variety of genres. Much of the music is new and the reviews are well written. I like.
UPDATE: April 13, 2008 – RegnYouth Archives are down, and it seems so for good.
I hope this will be the last post for a while on my “problems.” A year into them, I think I’ve figured out what is not going on with me, what probably is, and what I need to do to address them. I’m writing this more for my own records than for anything else.
For two weeks up until last Wednesday, I had been on a migraine medication, which also happened to be a blood-pressure drug. What is usually a drug with a high success rate in lessening migraines and a low risk of side-effects gradually became another medication disaster for me. Only a few weeks after a strong mood reaction to Ceftin, an anti-biotic, I now was dealing with another mood/personality issue from a medication.
The drug, Inderal, apparently had accumulated in my system over those two weeks and caused my blood pressure to drop significantly. This caused physical and mental problems: feverishness, fatigue, disorientation, sweating, numbness in my arms, personality changes, mood swings, and, it seems, problems remembering. Several days after going off the drug, my mind and body began to return to normal, albeit a bit fried and sore. But, now that I’m off the drug–which did stop my headaches–I have to deal with the nearly daily migraine headaches.
It’s become clear now that I am getting more and worse migraines now than before I came to Purdue. It’s also becoming clear that I have stress management issues that are making it worse. I’m not taking any more prescription drugs right now: I’m just too sensitive to them. I’m taking an herbal medicine, feverfew, which was recommended to me for migraine. I’m not sure if it’s helping yet, but I am feeling no side effects (or effects at all) at this point. I’m also waking up at 7 every morning and either exercising or meditating.
If I have even a shred of discipline in me, this should help me out considerably. I’m really beginning to love teaching, so I need to get my stress under control and get on with my life.
