Black Magic Woman, Derby Days Reading, Teen Workshop with Karen Finneyfrock, Mad Girl’s Love Song, and a 19th anniversary

An interview about black magic influences up for Spoila Magazine here, where you can find about my favorite black magic women, among other things…

http://www.spoliamag.com/talking-black-magic-with-jeannine-hall-gailey/

If you’re going to Redmond’s Derby Days this weekend, I’ll be opening for the band Recess Monkeys on the main stage on Saturday July 13th, reading some lighthearted geek-themed poems at 3 PM. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day, and if you’re an Eastsider, you’re trapped here anyway! Because they’re closing BOTH floating bridges to Seattle this weekend.

I’m particularly happy to be working with Hugo House and Karen Finneyfrock at my last teen workshop on July 24, which Redmond Reporter wrote up here – you should RSVP if you’re a teen or have a teen who enjoys geeky subject matter and creative writing!

http://www.redmond-reporter.com/community/214797091.html

In the middle of reading the Sylvia-before-Ted bio Mad Girl’s Love Song, which I am really preferring to the previous Sylvia bio on my reading list this summer, Pain, Parties, Work – I think because the author seems less enamored of Sylvia and more down-to-earth, I can enjoy it much more and not feel the strain of a biographer trying to gloss over some rather unpleasant Sylvia aspects. I’m definitely not reading either biography to get, you know, tips on how to be a happy poet or how to balance writing and marriage from Sylvia, so what I’m getting from “Mad Girl’s Love Song” that I like is a sense of Sylvia’s fierce competitive side and equally fierce intelligence. Her ambition is daunting to me. I think of myself as pretty ambitious, but compared to Sylvia, I’m sort of lazy. In a fit of serendipity, I also found an article in this month’s Town and Country about artist’s colonies, which told the story of how Sylvia got into…either Yaddo or Macdowell, but basically it was word of mouth, and the whole article made artist residencies seem glamorous and insider-y and unattainable.

Speaking of happy poet marriages…today was Glenn and my 19th wedding anniversary today, but we had so many meetings, appointments, and errands (including a wasted hour at the Courthouse trying to renew our passports (giant fail! and grrr to the unfailingly rude ladies working the booths there, who were not only unhelpful to us after we stood in line endlessly in their grimy un-air-conditioned-on-a-ninety-degree-day holding chambers, but to a single mother holding a squirming toddler trying to get a restraining order for a man who had been threatening her outside her house, whom they also turned away for the improper paperwork that the cops had given her – for shame!) I’d also had an anaphylaxis attack late the night before after getting my b12 shot – it’s happened a couple of times now even pre-medicating with Benadryl, so I may have to stop getting them – and so I wasn’t feeling my best, sort of worn-out and achy, which often happens after those allergic attacks. (PS If you’ve had an allergic reaction to b12 shot, let me know! I hope I’m not the only one, and I’m not sure exactly what in them I’m allergic to yet.)
So we hopefully will celebrate tomorrow, it’s supposed to be lovely and back to my beloved 70’s temperatures, maybe making some osso bucco with polenta, a chocolate souffle, maybe a visit to the Seattle Zoo or the Seattle Art Museum before they shut down our bridges…It’s important to celebrate when and where we can. For every terrible bureaucracy experience, there is a gracious and beautiful experience waiting to happen, right? I’m hoping so.