randomised keyboards

So I was doing some netbanking this morning and discovered that the virtual keyboard, which is usually the standard issue Qwerty, had suddenly become a random one.

I stuck my face close to the screen, searched they keyboard and picked out the first letter of my password. 

The keyboard randomised its letters and numbers. And this happened with each keystroke.

I mean, I understand it's a great idea for security reasons (or so I imagine? I someone going to tell me it's all rubbish?) but it's a pain in the retina to try and figure out where each letter and number is every time. This particular password didn't have any capitals otherwise I'm sure I'd have discovered more difficulties. 

*

Speaking of eye trouble, I have decided that one reason I have written so little this year is because I cannot read my notes. 

I write 'em well enough, but when I write, my handwriting tends to be frugal and cramped, as if I were running out of paper and no more forests were available for pulping into papyrus.

End result: I can't make out what the heck I was saying, so I don't bother looking at notes once I've done making them. And it's not as if my mental retentive powers have compensated or anything. 

All this means that if I can't read my notes, I can't write.

(Or so I tell myself).

The Sideways Door: November Response Column

This month, The Sideways Door had a disappointing crop of precisely one submission. And it's not even the first time this has happened. I have said in my latest column that TSD will close when there are no submissions in any given month. 

But I wonder whether I should wait to have that particular ignominy come to pass, or if I should just close the door on my way out in a month of my choosing.

Watch this space; I'll let you know when I know.

Fwiw, here's the column.

The Sideways Door: November Prompt

This month, I dusted off a prompt I'd written but never sent it. I guess now I'm in the mood to read poems with myth at their heart.

Here's the prompt.

I also discovered last week, while curating the @genderlogindia handle and posting poems by women poets, that I may have got the name for my poetry column from a poem by Ursula le Guin without realising it. That is to say, I didn't quote it when I wrote my first column more than a year ago, when I spent a little time talking about doors on their sides.

Oh well.

So. Please write and send in poems. This month I'm allowing 40 line poems.