A little more than a week until our trip up to Seattle and Pasco, Washington, where I’ll be reading and teaching at Columbia Basin College (and making a brief appearance at RadCon) and Glenn will be putting in his time at the Redmond campus. Despite the fact that I’ve finally graduated to foot exercises (toe curls and ankle spins, exciting stuff!) I’m still not able to put much weight on my right foot (the doc said some tendon damage where the break happened is slowing me down – tendons take longer to heal than bones, apparently) and the right hand is still really painful (tendon damage there too, they said) but the rest of me is healthy so as long as I can get around, wheelchair or crutches or whatever, I’m planning to go do regular poet stuff as much as possible – including, hopefully, visiting a few friends, Open Books, and other fun Washington stuff. Of course, it probably won’t be seventy and sunny up there the way it is here, although I can always keep up hope for unseasonably warm, dry weather up there…
I’ve been trying not to be too discouraged about my situation, but it’s pretty tedious being stuck in the wheelie-chair with a cast on my arm – I want to run and jump around!…I’ve been keeping a steady stream of library books coming and going by the bed. Yesterday I read my review copy of Denise Duhamel’s new book, Ka-Ching! I just love her work. I’ve been reading Seven Days in the Art World, which I also loved, an exploration of MFA programs and art auctions and studios with a great chapter on the studio of Takashi Murakami. Also I read two books from the Gossip Girl series. That’s not improving my brain, I know it. And I have two Haruki Murakami novels on hold. I should be getting my online class materials ready for my “Advanced Poetry Workshop” in April, but the class development software doesn’t work with Vista, which is what my laptop runs, unfortunately. I’m sooo looking forward to Windows 7! I want to install the beta pretty soon. Of course, I’m looking even more forward to walking and having a regular working right hand again! Two to three more weeks for the bone, they’re saying…and another month or two for the tendons. Until then, feel free to send me lengthy comments, e-mails, letters, poetry news, etc…I can’t type a ton, but I can read all day long!