The dog days: are they really over?

Unless I do something stupid, like staying up for hours reading, I will go to bed in July and wake up in August, and that will be great, because July kinda sucked. Everything broke, we got a lot of stupid ants in our house, and the ants didn't turn into dollars like we hoped. Thanks a lot, July.

So now it's August and I begin to buckle down, even though school is looming in a few weeks, and Ray will be home for the first week of school, then starting kindergarten the second. I'm going to start writing poems again, and I will cross things off my to-do list, and I will send more poems out, and I will cease posting dark photos on my blog. I'll jazz it up. Just you wait and see.

Sacrifice to the god of household machinery.

I'm not sure exactly what I've done to anger the god of household machinery, but it's time for me to sacrifice something and make amends. Maybe I don't cook with enough garlic. Maybe those ants I've been battling are somehow in cahoots with the household machinery, and the broken garage door, AC system, and dryer (all in rapid succession) are payback. Whatever it is, I need to do something. Would sage help? Some kind of spell?

I haven't written anything but essays and blurbs this week, but I will write a poem. It's just not going to happen this afternoon.

If the sacrifice doesn't work, maybe a machine voodoo doll. I wonder if there's such thing as a poem voodoo doll. I wonder if that's why I haven't written so much lately.

Wherein our heroine fears she has disappointed herself, and perhaps others, too.

Is it silly or ungrateful to ask the universe for fewer revelations? Because I feel like I'm about a week behind in understanding what's going on, and basically what's going on is that I have been feeling rather proud of myself for getting by and moving along, but I am really not accomplishing anything. The closets I vowed to organize over the summer? Even messier than before! The weeds I promised to pull? Raging. And I'm not even going to mention the poems, or non-poems, or the meandering.

I did take some nice pictures this weekend, though. And I've read more this summer than I usually read in a year (mostly fiction and nonfiction, for fun), so that can't be bad. But I fear it's Time to Buckle Down in a big way, as in: learn how to write poems with the kids home, and clean those damn closets. I will not even get into what we've been eating, because summer food on a budget is not the healthiest, though we are earning A+ grades for produce consumption, so that is a good thing.

The poem-writing might be easier if I had some kind of series or project, but my series concepts are a little willy-nilly right now. I was describing to Eric tonight that the best quality of my most recent poem (written today, because I forced myself) is that its lines are very symmetrical. I guess this means I need to try again, and again, and again.

The week of all the surprises.

This week contained surprises big and small. The big involved epic rainstorm and subsequent wet basement and flooded "three-seasons room," a kid who started some epic puking with very little warning, epic heat, and epically-awesome acceptance of two poems, one of which has the working title of my newest manuscript. Also, epic news for other people, which made me really happy, and also threw me a bit off schedule in the to-do list department.

The small surprises: having to call in for jury duty every day, and never needing to report. Kids who somehow managed to mostly behave while locked in the house due to sickness and ungodly heat. Trying a really tasty quinoa salad. Getting two extra, kid-free hours this morning due to softball game being cancelled, then opening all of the windows in the house (it's still hot and humid, but I'm so happy to actually have the air moving around) and then pretty much wasting those two hours.

Other highlights: ordered uniforms, backpacks, lunch boxes. I have a feeling that as soon as I really figure out how to thrive being at home sans childcare, it will be time for back to school. Or maybe I will have a week, and then it will be time for back to school. This week was a little better in terms of "being economical." Also, I am finding that I rather enjoy being home. Ray + kindergarten = not completely sinking in yet.

Next week may be "the week of nothing," because we don't have any plans aside from the usual softball practice and softball games and piano lessons and library, etc. I am very impatient for Raymond to learn how to read. It's so nice watching Gabi devour books. We made multiple book runs this week. I'm not reading as much as I would like, either due to no time, or the fact that I never want American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell to end.

It would be okay if next week had fewer surprises. Seriously.

Major update.

Okay, just kidding. There's nothing major here. Still calling in every day to see if Akron Municipal Court wants me to make any judgments about my fellow citizens. Also not writing (no time! at all!) and falling behind on other things (" "). I've pinpointed the waning battery life of my laptop as one possible reason for some of the behindness, as I can't sneak around the house and take care of multiple obligations at a time. I should probably also blame some of it on the weather, right? I don't hate the heat, but that's easy to say when you own a central air system built in 1980. I had to sink $326.00 into it for maintenance, but it still kicks out the jams. I am trying to organize myself with sticky notes, but I don't write them clearly enough. But time is moving along, and so am I.

The week of the ________.

One thing about me that's not so great is that I'm not one of those people who counts things. So if you ask me how many weeks of summer are left, I will just look at you funny. In a continuing effort to improve myself, I just ate a bunch of twizzlers counted the number of weeks left until school starts, and the answer is five. And now that, as of today, all summer camps for my children are done, perhaps I should give each week a name, if not a theme. This coming week's name is "on call for jury duty," which is extra awesome when you have two kids home with you and obviously can't bring them along. So I am looking forward to the week after next week, unless miraculously next week I don't have jury duty, or I'm put on a case where I may bring justice to the world, though hopefully via an unusually brief trial.

Have written a few poems, but none this week. I am, however, getting a pretty nice tan.

X (literally) marks the pedwalk.

I hereby mark this as yet another super-fun summer weekend. It was so cool seeing Saint Monica on the shelves of Visible Voice books, and for the first time I read out of the actual, physical book. Many thanks to Black Lawrence Press for getting me the luxurious "natural" colored paper for the book, which is a lifesaver because I sometimes have migraine with aura, and the color is so much easier on the eye/brain. Big ups to my co-readers, Eric Morris and Aleathia Drehmer, and to the Free Union Reading Series.

In other news, I am the featured poet at Anti- right now. Would you care to take a peek? These poems are pretty darn new. I have more to send out into the world, once I get a little more organized.

I have indeed been writing new poems, by the way. 5 pages, 1,203 words. I'm not especially in love with any of them, but I am rather glad they are here.

Creepy Train.

Thankfully this train is no longer in town, but do you know what is? A really fun Saturday afternoon reading in a place that has WINE and BOOKS: Visible Voice in Tremont, 4:00 pm. Eric and I will be reading poems with Aleathia Drehmer of New York. I will read some Saint Monica poems and there will be copies for sale, and Eric & I will read the newest installment of our Scenic Birds of Ohio series, wherein we write poems imagining that the shuttlecock is a bird of Ohio. Oh, it will be so fun. We hope to see you there.

Ordinary-ish time.

This anecdote is really dorky, so please stop reading now if you dislike tales of otherwise cool people getting dorky, or exhibiting dorky behavior, or whatever. So lately I have become ADDICTED TO READING. Like, I read A Visit from the Goon Squad in just a couple of days, sneaking it on the sly like cigarettes or tablespoons of verboten peanut butter.

The upside of this is that I am very passionate about reading books for fun right now. The downside is that this is at the expense of writing poems. Thirty spare minutes in the evening? Read book, not write poem. Will write poem once finished this chapter, I mean this book, I mean this next book. I'm not sure when I last felt like this, but it must be a good thing, so I won't totally fight it. It's like when I lie to myself and say that I crave particular foods because my body must need them.

Otherwise, this week being confused about what day it is. Feeling kind of anxious (understatement) for no reason. Next week Gabi is in more camp, and I have some meetings. Week after that: on call for jury duty all week, rescheduled from exam week Spring semester. Then: several weeks of blank calendar (hooray).

Yesterday I got to wade in a spillway. Maybe when I get less addicted to reading I can write a poem about it, or about something else.

Born thirsty.

Yeah, so, like six Julys ago I left Chicago and moved to Akron, OH. Since then I have only been back once, and that was for AWP 2009. But you know what? They have water here, too. Just look at this picture that was not taken in Chicago or on Lake Michigan, but right here in Ohio. Sure, there are some things I miss about my former home town, and I am counting the days until I visit again (for AWP 2012, of course). But this is where I live now. And here's just a little homage to where that is.