tomorrow's my birthday

When I was a very little girl (more than twenty years ago, now) and still living in a ramshackle cabin in the back of beyond, birthdays were a very special day. We didn't have much money (hence, ramshackle-ness), but I remember being awakened on my birthday to the sound of the Beatles singing, "They say it's your birthday." My father would put the record on, crank it up to eleven, and play it over and over, while my sister and I sang and danced in our pajamas. The unbounded joy of it all.

new issue of there

There is here!

With work from: Glenn Bach, Christophe Casamassima, Laurel DeCou, Jacob Eichert, Meg Hamill, Halvard Johnson, Ted Keller, Su Pike, Linda V. Russo, Sarah Trott, and Donald Wellman.

feast or famine

I have one more week of work, and then I have to hope something else materializes. I'll finish the article by Monday, finish at Mills on Monday, finish the copyediting by Friday. And then Saturday is my birthday, and the next weekend Adam and I are going out of town. And then I need to find something else. Of course, these projects seem to pile up on each other, and then there's just a trickle. What I need is another part-time gig to smooth the edges and get me out of the house.

A (Stinky) Tree Grows in Brooklyn

If I were going to write a mystery novel, I might just start with this.

New Yipes Aug. 20

Erika Staiti will be reading with Yuri Hospodar at the August New Yipes. She's the latest managing editor of 580 Split and I saw her read at one of the Wrecks in Progress last spring (the one where I read from Valley/Ridge and Lands Cape).

Actually, it's for you

Phone rang early this morning. It was ringing and I was dreaming and I was waking and I knew I went to work yesterday so it must be Saturday. It was ringing and I wanted it to stop.

"It's for you," I said to Adam, so he answered it. Also, the phone is on his side of the bed.

"Hello. One moment please..."

And that's when I woke up and remembered it isn't Saturday, it's Tuesday. And yesterday I called lots of people and left messages for the article I'm writing. So I jumped out of bed and looked for a robe to put on and couldn't find it in the gray light. It was light out, but gray and foggy, so I didn't even know what time it was. And then I went into the living room and looked for pen and paper and couldn't find any. So I just sat down unprepared and answered the phone.

"Good morning." The caller instantly apologized, saying he was in New York and hadn't realized I was on the West Coast. Unspoken was that he also hadn't realized until just then that I was working from home and that the number he had was the number that would wake me up in the early morning. I just hope he hadn't realized I was naked.

This was embarrassing for both of us so we quickly got down to business and I told him about the article and he gave me an email address.

When I got back to bed, I looked at the clock: 6:45.