The White Stuff:
The weather forecast here is taking on a doomsday tone, with phrases like "major winter storm," "half inch of ice," and "six inches of snow" (hush, ye northerners; around here we think six inches is a LOT). I had a long list of errands to do this weekend, but almost all of them can wait until next week if necessary, so that I can just hunker down in my house with books and movies and cats -- a blizzard is a great excuse to just sit around reading all day, right? Except for the one errand that really can't wait, which is: go buy snow shovel. Yes, I will probably be That Person tomorrow morning, standing in line at the hardware store with a snow shovel in one hand and a bag of ice-melter in the other, twitching nervously as the storm begins.
We're actually expected to get a little bit of snow, then several hours of sleet and freezing rain, then a bunch more snow. The layered look. I don't particularly approve.
Night of the Living Toddler:
I have friends who have 3-year-old twin girls and a 2-year-old boy. Last night I actually babysat for several hours. I'm not what you would call a natural with kids, and their mom would probably have been happier if the kids had actually gotten to sleep before she got home, but by the time I left everyone was still alive, everyone was still speaking to everyone else, the house was still standing, and no emergency rescue vehicles of any variety had been summoned. I call that a raging success.
Question:
Do you suppose editors are starting to clear their desks in a big "clear the desk before the holidays" push? I have a fair amount of stuff that's been out long enough that it might have been read by now, not long enough to get too antsy about it yet ... kind of wondering whether to expect a handful of responses in the next week and a half. Hmmm. I want to get at least a couple more batches out over the weekend. 2007 has been the Year Of Slacking when it comes to me sending stuff out to journals; I want 2008 to start on a busier note.
Of course, actually writing stuff is more important, and I want next year to be busy in that department as well. Lately I've been writing some stuff that feels a bit different for me, and I like that. I have several newish poems I'm eager to fiddle with. That's such a good feeling. I like the feeling of looking at a poem and deciding that it's finished, but I like it even more when it's not quite there yet, but I'm interested enough in it to keep on poking at it. How does that work? You make a thing, then you poke at it to find out what makes it tick -- even though you wrote it so you ought to know what makes it tick. That's the best: when I've written something that is still a bit of a mystery to me. When I find myself curious about my own poem, about what it's trying to do in its little world. That is just the best.
5 comments:
Anne:
Re: Disaster Preparedness.
Better to be the person in line with snow shovel and ice melt than the person in line with a cart full of bad food (white bread, sausage in a 10lb bag, cheese-food product, anything cheese-flavored, bacon, peanut butter and 24 rolls of toilet paper.) Round here, esp. the store where my mum works, that's the rule.
Re: Kindersittin.
I'm--frighteningly--good with kids . But I've done the babysitting thing for friends. It can be tough. With my nieces and nephews I had one standard of care--usually almost happy boot camp. With the children of others, I was laxer. This was my checklist: did they get more food in them than on them? did they bathe without drowning? did they chew wires or eat off the floor? Did any of us cry for more than a few minutes? Was there bleeding?
Re: Submission (which I can no longer type without hearing Fiddler On the Roof's "Tradition")
I've been wondering that too. I was thinking about blogging it...i.e. what's the shortest turn around time, longest, etc etc. I'm in the same boat here....hoping to hear on the one hand...hoping not to on the other.
Stay warm. Steal the kitty bed for your feet if you have to!
I've been wondering about the submission pile as well. I have a few items still out there from June, one of which I am going to pull, and a chapbook that response was due by 12-15 with no info to date.
I'm pulling the submission I sent on 6-22 and the chapbook for resubmission.
I'm hoping next year I get more focused writing done, time actually spent rather than flitting around always feeling I'm in a hurry.
Stay warm, it is even down to the 20's in the South. Brrrrrr!
RJ: God! I forgot my cheese-food product. What was I thinking? They're gonna evict me from the midwest for that. As for the kitty bed, I'll settle for having an actual kitty on my feet. They make great footwarmers.
Jessie: Wow, I wouldn't pull the chapbook that quickly if I were you -- unless you have another reason to pull it besides just being a couple days past the deadline. Me, I'd probably wait another week or two and then maybe query. But you may have other reasons for pulling it, so feel free to ignore me. ;) Focused writing time... yeah, that sounds nice!
Do you have pickles on hand? If so, fear not -- if you have pickles, you're allowed an exemption from the cheese food product rule. (Midwest inhabitant code 1306.41.3J.)
Sleet can be nasty stuff -- the only time I can recall when the buses stopped running in Minneapolis because of the weather was one day in November, years ago, when we got something like an eighth of an inch of ice all over everything overnight. The city pulled all buses off the street. As the morning went on the temp got just warm enough that the ice melted, and by late morning the buses were running again.
If it's going to sleet I'd much rather have it snow a little first, easier to walk on.
Lyle: No pickles either! I may be in trouble. Although pickles may be more of an upper Midwest thing...
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