“And Henry says,
You’re lucky to even know me,
you’re lucky to be alive.
You’re lucky to be drinking here for free
cause I’m a sucker for your lucky pretty eyes…”

Today I am grateful. I am busy, stressed, shipping out Christmas packages, unpacking and repacking for another trip, this time home to Cincinnati, trying to get everything done before I leave. Trying to keep in touch with many friends, and I am lucky to have so many friends. Trying to keep my writing stuff organized, trying to meet school paperwork deadlines, trying to keep up with which poems are where and why and how. Trying to get ready for my reading Thursday night. I am excited about my first book, feeling hopeful about the awkward second manuscript I’ve been working on, feeling grateful that someone is taking a chance on me and Becoming the Villainess. Grateful for a recent acceptance from a journal I really like, Wicked Alice. Grateful I can still love being with my husband of 11+ years after six hours in the car together; grateful that when we went dancing we still remembered how to move our feet, how to head-bang, how to slow-dance. I’m grateful for the fat, black-capped Anna’s Hummingbird still guarding my feeder throw snow and cold rain.

“And he keeps telling me
you, you have time
(but I don’t believe him)”