Juked

Check out Selling It to Mrs. Foster by the talented Theresa Boyar in
J U K E D. This is one which will stay with you.

Lemming time. I'm going to do NaNoWriMo. Why not? I'm lying around most of the time for the next several weeks no matter which way I go, so why not make the best of it? Surely I can dribble 50K worth of drivel in a month. It's time to write the sequel to Homestar anyway. (I'm stuck on Coyote Stories - it's 122 pages and I have no idea what happens next.)

And finally, our second "Emerging Writers" poetry and fiction reading happens this Saturday at the library. It starts at 3 pm with five accomplished poets and writers reading their work, followed by an hour or so of hanging out and exchanging ideas, book recommendations, etc..

Mary Had a Little Lamb

My girl can now saw out a complete song on her violin.

Drove Paul up a tree. . .

Six Words

Check this out at Wired magazine.

Yuck

Looks like I really blew it. The disc material has extruded down and that's what causing the numbness and weakness. Good news, I can stand long enough to have class on Sunday and get some household chores done. Bad news, I'll be having surgery in Great Falls next week.

Had a cortisone shot in the back yesterday, a strange experience. My doctor invited a local chiropractor to observe so she could increase her knowledge base. It hurt and I hollered some (but I only cussed once). After I got my pants back on, I asked the chiro if she learned anything. "Oh, I could watch this all day," she chirped.

I wished I'd said "Next time, let's trade places."

Homestar update

Great news -- a publisher liked the first chapter of Homestar and asked for the full yesterday. I'm not saying the name, being superstitious. It's a small, new, and wonderful "by authors, for authors" publisher and it would be a high honor to be published by them. Actually, I consider it quite an honor they want to look at the full ms. Next to that came a rejection from an agent - a good one that suggested he might have actually thought about it. So hope hangs on for one more day and the fantasies begin anew of book touring.

BTW, I was most impressed with Karen Fisher, author of A Sudden Country last weekend. She came to Helena to promote her book and lecture at the Helena Bookfest -- and she brought her whole family. How cool is that?

I didn't get to visit with her but I did have the pleasure of meeting Chris Crutcher. Chris writes real-life YA novels and has won many awards. Most significant, his books have reached out to kids and helped them out of a dark lonely place. He was encouraging and had some suggestions for finding publishers for Homestar. He also said he was impressed with the amount of literary energy and accomplishment (I'm paraphrasing) that we have here in Helena. Not bad for a little town.

Health Insurance and Other Matters of Death

Larry's chapbook Health Insurance and Other Matters of Death is coming out from Foothills Publishing in a couple of weeks! We are so excited. These poems sound a darker knell than his usual love poems to me and our kids, but are some of my favorites -- especially "Kelsie." (If you're considering hooking up with a poet, I highly recommend it. Of course, on the flip side, there's Jean Stafford's experience with Robert Lowell to balance out my recommendation.) Here's what Literary Mama's Rachel Iverson had to say about Larry's book. More later . . .

Callous-backed

I'm a callous-backed woman - for all the wrong reasons. Somehow I seem to have herniated a disc in my lower back so I'm flat on it. You'd think I'd sieze the opportunity to write. No, I'm perfecting my sudoku technique. I have every expectation I will completely recover from this. The doctor gave me a TENS unit (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) which helps with the pain, I got acupuncture and am continuing physical therapy. It seems this is quite common among people of a certain age -- the PT says it's a lifetime of bad postural habits catching up to me. Already I'm seeing some progress. In the meantime, my husband is racking up points for Heaven. He's taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, working . . . he's really showing up in a kind and loving way.

The worst news is all this downtime, not being able to run around with the kids, plus I have to cancel my class on Sunday because I can't sit at all and can't stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

Food

Now I'm back on my food plan. Day six. Hoping to get back on some kind of emotional equilibrium around food and also lose some of the weight I've gained, though I'm not really fat. I hate being on the food plan. At this moment, I'm more sick of the highs and lows from food and the physical side effects of the whole thing than I hate the food plan. I would love to find an easier way. A woman's magazine ran an article on a researcher out of UC - Berkeley who says you can trick your body into speeding up your metabolism by drinking a tablespoon of olive oil one hour before you eat. "Lose ten pounds without trying," blared the headline. The instant fix, the American way, how much longer before my hour is up and I can hit the drive-thru?

No, I'm resigned.

The food plan works. There's no doubt about it. It also sucks, weighing and measuring and all that shit, just a different variation of food obsession. Here's how I'm making myself feel better: I decided when I get old, I won't wear purple. I will eat whatever in the hell I want until I have to buy my clothing by the yard. There will be no decision about what kind of pie to get. All of them will come home with me -- pumpkin, chocolate cream, banana cream, boston cream, jumbleberry, key lime, lemon meringue. Even mincemeat. I'll eat a slice with breakfast, lunch and dinner; eat an orange to clear my palate; then top it off with coffee ice cream. When I get sick of that, I'll move on to bread pudding drizzled with chocolate syrup. I'll roll into the gourmet bakery here in town and hand them my credit card. I better wait until I get really old to try it, though, because I think I'll keel over pretty quick following that plan.