The past year has been interesting, sometimes in a good way. Sometimes not so much. I moved this past year and I expect to assimilate to the new surroundings and reality eventually – but not quite yet. I learned a few new things about myself this year, especially in the past few months. As usual, I wish I could have learned some of those lessons without the accompanying experiences, but I’m not sure I’ve ever learned much of anything the easy way.

Still, I have hope that the new year will bring good things, as I hope it does for everyone reading this. And speaking of reading, I’ve begun concentrating my writing efforts elsewhere. If you’d like to check out the new target of my efforts, feel free to visit  .

Best wishes for the new year,

howard

Tags:  , nonbreakingspace.com, haiku, poetry, creative writing, 2008

One Tree Hill – U2
That’s Just What You Are – Aimee Mann
One Way Out – Allman Brothers
Dare You to Move – Switchfoot
Rosebud – Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
Willingly – Vigilantes of Love
Four Seasons in One Day – Crowded House
Lakini’s Juice – Live
Solidify – Sheryl Crow
I Wanna Be Like You – Los Lobos

Worlds above and worlds below:
Ben
Cziltang
Jessica

Nobody Number One – Over the Rhine
What You Need – INXS
Daylight – Better than Ezra
Mr. Magoo – 77s
Moondance – Over the Rhine
On the Good Ship Lollipop – Lost Dogs
Endgame – R.E.M.
James – Huffamoose
Bartering Lines – Ryan Adams
Too Cool for School – Fountains of Wayne

Heart-strings that play soft and low:
Ben

All of which made a small spike in visits all the more obvious the past couple days. Two factors went into the aforementioned spike. One was Troy Worman’s generous outstanding blogs meme, which happened to include this site. While I don’t have the energy or time to create a similar list (I’m not quite sure who would have that kind of time), I did want to acknowledge the effort Troy put into it. Check out his exhaustive list, if you can. There are a bunch of good reads on it. Troy is also currently blogging at Process Geek.

The second source of increased traffic was from an even more unexpected entity. I was actually getting hits from the Wall Street Journal website, specifically the page pictured below:

Can you see it yet? Look a little closer:

While it’s kind of cool to be getting referrals from the Wall Street Journal, it’s cheapened a little when the post they link to doesn’t really have much to do with the article on their site.

Offer – Vigilantes of Love
Happy Being Lonely, Lonely Being Happy – Vigilantes of Love
Comfortably Numb – Dar Williams
Jezebel – 10,000 Maniacs
Blossom and Blood – Midnight Oil
Grey in L.A. – Loudon Wainwright III
Hunger – Nicolai Dunger
Loves Comes Tumbling – U2
Constantinople – The Decemberists
Sock Heaven – Steve Taylor

Happy coincidence: The first two songs had me wondering if the entire list would be coming from the Vigilantes (which for me would be no problem at all).
Inspired by Knocked Up: The Loudon Wainwright number is off the soundtrack album from the aforementioned motion picture. On a related note, I’ve been attempting to solicit haiku from a couple of my Modern Letter Project contacts. This week, one of my most faithful (and entertaining) correspondents sent me one, and it’s inspired by the same film as the Wainwright tune. (I’m not sure the writer consents to this publication, but she had to know it was a possibility, right?)

You don’t get pinkeye
from wayward poop particles.
That is just a myth.

All people with dreams:
Ben
Fred