Thursday, June 30, 2011

I visit my two friends' suburban book store - good to talk books: Let the Great World Spin, Little Bee. They're staying open, buying fewer books, selling fewer books. I asked about Bonnie Jo Campbell's new book - it isn't out yet, but I'm sure I'll love it - having read the great article in the latests Poets & Writers. The author had a photo of Annie Oakley up on her wall for inspiration. Learned to shoot as part of her book research. The book is set on the river, and might be called On the River. Or something like. I wanted to be Annie Oakley, except I was afraid of guns and horses and couldn't really walk that well. The Wild West Shows were gone.

I bought STATE OF WONDER by Ann Patchett. I hope I like it. I've read lots of things lately I have around the house with bookmarks in them. Books I left listlessly.

I sent in an essay yesterday - overnighted it since the deadline for RECEIPT not POSTMARK was today. I spent two hours revising in Kinkos before the 4:30 FED EX pickup. I made the pickup. Rereading the essay today I see I buried my first paragraph mid-essay. Perhaps they'll be charmed by the intentional (HA) oddity of that. Perhaps a punch will have been packed. I spent a lot of money to send it, mostly because I wanted to honor my promise to myself that I would send an essay this year. I have little illusion that the piece will win. BUT I SENT IT.

I wait now for my friend to meet me for dinner. I am driving my daughter's car, knee deep in food wrappers and starbucks frappucino cans.

Friday, June 17, 2011

imperative: write anything so that last post doesn't
impose itself on me everytime I pull up internet.

Pull up in front of internet?
on my ebon steed with the flaring nostrils...
in my Morris Minor? (which is still FOR SALE)

Pulling out of town once the yellow car
gets a new front strut, oil change,
headlights that glow even when you don't
leap from the vehicle and whack them
again and again with both fists.

Technology Development of the Day:
I have broken the adaptor that supposedly allows the tiny new-fangled SIM card to plug into my computer so I can download the photos that are too large to send to anyone - except for a few of them for reasons I do not understand. Perhaps the phone is whimsical. It is not a smart phone. Everyone else in my family can go on the internet on the go, can check email and e-cetera. I campaigned to get internet access for my not-smart-phone. For $10 a month, I can see some whirling and an ATT homepage inviting me to go to an ATT preselected site. I can get email only if I pay another $5 a month. Probably if I wanted to do something outlandish such as looking at or posting to my blog I could pay another $5 a month. I'm going to pay the additional $5 a month for a month. If it is still ridiculous (also with text so small that bottle bottom glasses may be required) I will disconnect and continue as a phone user who uses her phone as a phone. An acquaintance, the same one who commented about my new haircut that it made me look, "like an older lesbian," made fun of my phone yesterday. He doesn't understand why his marriages don't last. (not simultaneous ones.)

On the docket for today:
(checked off already) Push Q's tricycle around the neighborhood while Q steers "go right!" and she does! "go left!' "Straighten her out!" She likes to repeat, "Straighten her out!" She also likes when I recite my poems to her. "I like that sponge poem," she said yesterday about a poem I'd said to her the day before. We like to say nonsense rhymes together, including "baby, caby, daby, waby, saby." She's a new big sister. This has its drawbacks. Baby R is two weeks old today. Q hasn't asked that she be put back in the womb as her mommy did when her younger sister was two weeks old, but this is on her mind, I think.
(checked off already) Went to VW dealer and made appointment yellow car
(yet to do): get mail forwarded to Chelan. There's a check in the mail from a person who's renting in August, so gotta go to the house and check mail daily 'til that comes, THEN put on mail forwarding. Mail forwarding takes 7 days to actually forward.