It is Monday, though I feel quite cheerful because I have a new computer that works (thank goodness, finally) and I wrote a letter to the editor at the Atlantic and I’ve never written a letter to the editor before but I thought it was for a good cause (to cheer Kelli and Pacific U) and this afternoon I am going to a very smart rheumatologist who may at last tell me why I’ve had a fever for two months and have albumin-anemia and high C-Reactive Protein. This I believe has been the cause of my fatigue and “down” moods lately – I was telling a friend that I feel my “down”-ness is in my body, not my head, that’s exactly it. I actually feel okay with my life, especially now that: a. I am wondering where to rent next (always an adventure when you’re picking a new town, even a new town in driving distance) and b. where/if/how I should work (teaching? publishing? more freelancing?) and c: I feel happy about the third manuscript I’m working on, and how I’m writing a lot of poems about sleeping women. It’s just that I have so little energy – like having lead weights on all the time. I always feel weird talking about my physical stuff here but it’s hard to explain my life without also explaining that stuff, if you know what I mean. So, it’s part of my life – like writing, like my husband and cat, like where I live – it’s part of the life environment – when you are sick, it affects everything else.
But enough about me! Here’s a neat link to an interview with one of my favoritest faculty at Pacific, Dorianne Laux, at the Smoking Poet!
And, apparently, a party run by the Poetry Foundation was shut down by police in Chicago this weekend. Look, poets are already paranoid enough that “the man” is out to get them – you don’t need to encourage that kind of thinking, fellas! Wish I could have been there to see it.
Responsible Artist
When your CRP is elevated it’s like you’re always fighting a cold or infection and it leaves you exhausted. Easy to mistake these symptoms for depression.