Zoinks

I'd like to say the blank post was in reaction to this: Eric McHenry reviews my book in the New York Times. Holy crap. I had no idea. Wow. Thanks to Alex Lemon for tipping me off.

Christmas here was fun. The typical bustle we generate. Kids to-ing and fro-ing. Cats. The rest of us. I sat around gabbing with everybody, tapping away at the memoir while a ham drizzled with bourbon glaze baked in the oven. Which was also fun. I'm up to 85 pages or so now.

The whole process is interesting. Notes on pages, explanations of process. Like the Whiting, it's nothing I ever expected.

***

Happy Holidays everyone.....

K

No Whiting-like tease or dissembling. Yesterday's hint regarding my memoir: I was contacted by a literary agent about placing it with a trade publisher. Which is surprising and terribly exciting, all at once. It's nothing more specific than that right now. But that's the news.

O night

Back after being out of it for a week or so. And in the interim, strange, amazing things might be in the offing.

***

Bought my AWP flight tickets for surprisingly cheap. Not long now.

***

I'm not in Carrollton, back home visiting the 'rents for the holidays. Strange to be back. I did some shopping yesterday, for my brothers, nieces, nephews, even myself: a new ultra-thin Toshiba laptop. The Macbook/Pro called my name but I couldn't justify spending twice as much for something I'd use half as much.

It's a great little machine but it's interesting to switch back now, at least during the holidays, to remember the old shortcuts.

***

The strange/amazing goings-on spurred me to purchase this. What's going on, you ask? Remember the memoir I was working on last summer?

Rough

Ike Turner passed away yesterday. I put on this album. It's a great album but it never fails to be just music, knowing what we do about their marriage.

***

Christmas shopping began yesterday. I've been without a check card for a week now since The Sunshine Lady lost it. Waiting on the replacement bites. I don't like to carry cash around as I was mugged once. True story.

So I opened up a new bank account at a bank I can actually get to, and bought one of those Visa gift cards. It's a passable solution.

***

Yesterday: 78 degrees. Blue sky. Lunch on the patio at Miller's.

Sipping tea, a tall, burly middle-aged man comes over to introduce himself. Tells me his oldest son, his boy, is T3-5. Meaning, his son broke the 3rd through 5th vertebrae. I'm C3-4. So we chatted our traumas up. His son flipped a convertible, rolled it. "We washed red clay from his skull," he said. He was obviously getting broken up, talking about it. He punched me softly a few times in the shoulder. "He tells me, 'Dad, I'm fine.'"

Dollar short

This week at Slate, the uber-hot Sandra Beasley is the featured poet with her poem, "The World War Speaks."

Pro

Thursday afternoon a marauding band of poets and significant others drove forth from Carrollton towards the capital city of Atlanta. Towards Georgia Tech. Towards poetry.

Ok, so that is patently absurd sounding. It was me, Chad, Gwen, Greg and Lada in a rented van, with awesome automated ramp, who drove over to Tech to hear Katie Chaple read, along with other Atlanta poets Jon Goode and Collin Kelley.

I met Thom Lux shortly before Katie led off, dropping the awesome bomb. I swear, you throw a stick and you hit a good poet around here.

Afterwards, we crossed the street on a decidedly Mt. Doom-esque bridge, eventually winding our way back to the van. From there, it was a beeline to Baraonda, down the street from The Fox Theater, which was awesome. Chad and Greg impressed with their omnivore pizzas. Bit less rapacious, me. Drinks and talk. None of which can ever be repeated here. Then a quick stopover at Trader Joe's, where we wondered the aisles, picking up bread, cheese, chocolate, Italian blood orange soda. You know, the staples.

I can't quite describe how nice it all was. The van made everything effortless: a button's push and the doors would slide open, the ramp would slide out, and in I'd go. All of us, in no time, with no hassle or effort.

It was cold that night, windy, but I stopped a moment in the parking lot to see Atlanta's skyline rising up above us, all light.

I'm not a Nazi

The end of the semester and I'm a little heartbroken. In a good way. Saying goodbye to these two creative writing courses was bittersweet: I'm glad, of course, to reach the end generally unscathed but sad to see these sweethearts go off. My non-fiction class, especially: they were such troopers, though there were days when they jumped off the deep-end. Yesterday I commented they were like herding cats at times. And now they've made a Facebook group for "the best class ever!!!"

I can't stand it.

***

I have my old chair back. Goodbye, Jazzy. And just as I was getting good at driving it. Back in this one isn't strange, exactly, but I do have to readjust. Its driving style, it's speed, which seems insane after the Jazzy's lethargic puttering.

***

I have a long, sentimental post in mind that I keep avoiding.

This is how it works

Ah, arguing with poetry forum cranks. Life is good.

***

And it is. It's hard to believe, but it is.

***

Today is my last day of classes. Did I mention that life is good?