Hey, dear readers! Well, AWP Atlanta is coming soon – I’ve already starting getting stuff together, shampoo, toothpaste, shoes. Is it going to be warm enough to pack sandals, what poems should I read during my five minutes at the Frock You reading, etc.
But, at the top of my mind, I have another aunt in the hospital (this time my mother’s oldest sister) with a serious lung infection (she has emphysema, so every infection could be life threatening.) My mom flew out to see her at the hospital, and is currently cleaning her sister’s house, because her husband is also sickly and can’t do a lot of that kind of stuff anymore (open heart surgery, passing-out headaches, etc.) I really love this aunt and uncle, who have always been funny and kind, and it’s hard to see them – still in their sixties – in so much physical hardship. I always give too much advice when I’m anxious – air-purifiers, humidifiers, electric teapots, organic house cleaners that don’t bother my aunt’s lungs. Advising my mom and uncle to press the doctors when they say they don’t know, and don’t know how to find out what’s wrong. That’s never a good sign. I’ve had pneumonia more than ten times myself (*thank goodness for the pneumonia vaccine – I haven’t had a case since I had the shot a few years ago) I know the antibiotics backwards and forwards, the pros and cons of steroids, the enemies – mold, dust, other people’s coughs – of fragile lungs. Anyway, whenever medical problems arise, I feel the need to be there, to hold hands, to ask doctors questions myself, to make sure the nurses don’t put cleaning fluids in the IV (that actually happened here at a Seattle hospital a few years ago.) It’s my control-freak nature. I want to save everyone. I want to hold them myself to keep them safe.
Got our taxes done this weekend with husband G’s help. He has been putting all the forms in TaxCut as they have come in, so it wasn’t that much work beyond adding up receipts, figuring out the sales tax deduction, things like that. A relief to not have to worry about that at least any more.
Still no place to live, and we have to be out of our current place of residence by May. No steady job. I don’t feel very settled. Anyone feel like putting a nice poet and her husband up for a year in their Seattle-area condo/house/etc? Will write poetry for rent? We Tauri (the plural of Taures? Taureses?) like to have things settled. But everything is up in the air. Last night I dreamed I was on top of Whistler mountain, riding a ski lift, with no coat. Later I dreamed I was attacked by multiple killer octopi, pulling me underwater and when I woke up I was coughing and coughing. A sympathy asthma attack, perhaps.

I was really looking forward to seeing two of my fave Seattle peeps read tonight at Open Books, the lovely and talented Rebecca Loudon and super-smart Ron Starr, but unfortunately, my sciatic nerve-back injury thingy was killing me and I ended up flat on my back again this afternoon after a day or two of tentative walking/bending/etc regular life. Argh! I bet they rocked the house. You know what is NOT good for romance on Valentine’s Day? Back injury. Sigh! And now I might have to get some xrays too. I’ve got mild scoliosis and they think I might have done something to a disk (disc?). I’m feeling 73 instead of 33!! I’m hoping to be walking tall by AWP with no problem – two weeks from now.
In the mail today, a contributor copy of Diner, with a review in it by me and a beautifully-written review of my book my someone named “Susan Frickshorn” who I believe to be wonderful blogger-poet Suzanne Frickshorn in a possible double/alias. Thanks Suzanne! I felt very honored!
In other news, have a happy Valentine’s Day tomorrow – do something fun, eat some roses, enjoy candy, in general.

First of all, thanks to all of you who left wonderful responses to my last blog post – funny, encouraging, thought-provoking. I should always post about rejection and depression – I get such good insights! I injured my back last week right after the post, and had to be away from the computer, basically flat in bed doing nothing. Ironically, this made me feel much better and more productive.

For those of you interested in Kate Greenstreet’s series of interviews – here’s a switch – Kate is on the other end of the interview table in this! (PDF file: http://www.saintelizabethstreet.org/iss5/greenstreet_intrvw.pdf)

Chapbook Mini-Review

Lana Ayer’s chapbook, Love is a Weed, from Finishing Line Press.

Lana exhibits both wit and passion in this collection, which has poems that imagine Dorothy touring Italy after her return to Kansas, Atlas’ wife controlling the weather, Violet after George Bailey commits suicide in an alternate “Wonderful Life” reality. In between myth and fairy tale are poems of a couple’s travel from first love to affair to breakup, and all the stops in between. Lana is at her best when her dry sense of humor and turn of phrase work together, as in “Dorothy Does Italy:” “Jolted from her reverie by a timid waiter with tinder-blue eyes,/ she nods yes for another espresso and wonders if tonight’s the night/ her ruby dancing shoes will raise one hell of a memorable gale.”

I sent out two submissions which took what seemed like superheroine strength, to Swink and Alaska Quarterly. Now I am going to shape up and print up my second book manuscript for another round of submissions.

Here’s a link to Rebecca Loudon’s Sylvia Plath party!

And again, no pressure, dear readers, but there’s a free copy of my book hanging around with Galatea Resurrects and it’s waiting for a reviewer… http://grarchives.blogspot.com/2007/08/available-for-review.html

Self-Promotion, Bellingham-Style – Children’s books for various holidays – and an interview with Catherine Brady

All right, Bellingham-ians! We need a few more people to sign up for the Jeannine Hall Gailey/Martha Silano tag team Village Books Workshop or we’re going to have to cancel!!
You have til Feb 5 to sign up – but the sooner the better – here’s a description of the workshop:
Time: Tuesday, February 6, 2007 6:00 PM
Location: VB Readings Gallery
Memory & Mythology: Transforming the Personal into Poetry.
Join poets Jeannine Hall Gailey and Martha Silano for a night of workshopping (one poem by each participant will be discussed), two short generative writing exercises, and the sharing of work by poets (such as Louise Gluck and Li-Young Lee) who transform personal experience into powerful and moving poetry. Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess and Martha Silano is the author of Blue Positive.

Call Village Books today at Tel: (360) 671-2626 to reserve your spot!

A thought-provoking interview with Catherine Brady (bringing up such salient post-MFA worries as: how can I get a job teaching if I have no teaching experience if no one will let me teach because I have to teaching experience? And what about the state of book publishing today?) on the After the MFA blog.

I’ve been a little blue since my Aunt passed away on Monday night. I realized that even though I believe in an afterlife, it doesn’t always help – I still can’t visit my Aunt any more, or call her on the phone, or see her IM ID pop up on my computer. My husband G took me out to cheer me up, since I won’t be able to go to the funeral, to celebrate her life. My most vivid childhood memory is when my Aunt flew my whole family out to visit her in Colorado, the first time I’d been there, for Easter. This was when my Dad was a struggling assistant professor with four kids and my mom was still in school, so we would never have been able to afford a trip like this. The sky was beautiful and clear and the mountains were so unlike the low, tree-covered Smoky Mountains that I was used to. She bought me and my brother these amazing sugar-eggs, with little scenes inside, just like my favorite Easter children’s book, “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes.” (It’s a story of feminism, hope, struggle, and ultimately, love. Check it out if you have kids, or even if you don’t!)
This reminds me: For Valentine’s Day, go out and get a copy of the beautifully-illustrated children’s book, “The Valentine’s Cat.” It’s about a starving artist whose life is changed by a chimney-sweep cat with a curious mark on his forehead. And no, it’s not the mark of the beast. Here’s a link to The Valentine Cat on Amazon

More mini-reviews in the next few days…