i love how my shoulders look when i throw a hook. this was probably one of my best classes ever today. i had so much negative energy all built up in me yesterday, and while i was able to let go of most of it last night, i'd been jonesing for a good boxing session all day today. we only had about twenty minutes on the bags, but my new gloves are perfect and my arms felt really strong. my knee is still giving me trouble if i don't plant my foot right when i kick, but if i remember to turn my hips out it doesn't tweak. i'm better about not hyperextending either my knees or my elbows, and my calves are finally up to an hour straight of bouncing as we jab.


our rockstacking session was fantastic, too. we clambered down over a wall to a beach on the other side of lover's point, where there wasn't any wind, and set to work. between the three of us we made probably a dozen and a half stacks, including two ten-stacks and a precarious-looking nine that was still there the next morning when i went back to check. around two in the morning it became time to go home, but first we stepped back and looked at our stacks in the moonlight. perfect. i took some pictures the next day, and once i find somebody to develop black and white film i'll put them up here.


and to pretty much cover the only other thing that takes up my spare time anymore, i'm gonna be performing at the slam tomorrow night. i've been writing more poetry than i quite know what to do with lately - much of it not very good - but i've got three pieces that i'm pretty happy with, and at least one of them will go up tomorrow. i'm not putting any here because slam poetry (or mine, at least) has to be out loud or it doesn't quite work. it seems that i've got a dichotomy in my poetry now: there are quiet poems and there are slam poems. the quiet poems are the ones i've always written, and they are written, whereas the slam poems are composed. slam poems i begin out loud and say out loud over and over until they're done. then i write them down. they look silly on paper because they need force and voice and movement. they're performance pieces, essentially, and they almost always rhyme. if i'm reading a poem in my head, i hate when it rhymes. so if you want to hear the new stuff, come by tomorrrow night.


ps: silke, don't forget to bring your boots with you when you come. i'm gonna remind you until you slap me.