No News Is Bad News

I've been waiting and waiting for some book news concerning my next collection. Well, the news came today, and it isn't good. I'm really deflated, and a little pissed off. I feel so dumb for getting my hopes up, but if you had heard what you told me . . . . "we just want to be sure your manuscript is still available . . . we'll be in touch the next few day" you would have thought a book deal was coming your way too. I could just puke.

Attention all editors: The next time I am a hair awy from something, just don't even tell me. Let me walk around thinking you threw my book away ten seconds after you took it out of the envelope.

Ploughshares and The Southern Review

My poem In Livingston Parish, Dreamiing of Li Po is in the new issue of Ploushares, edited by David St. John. There's also a great poem by fellow blogger C. Dale Young.

I've got two poems in the current Southern Review: Your Psychic Powers and How to Develop Them, and Squeezers.

Squeezed

I would like to thank those of you who have written either publicly or privately to say how much you like my new book. I like it too, but in my family having a book out is so anticlimactic. I gave my mom a copy two months ago, and she still hasn't read it. How do I know this? Well, she left her copy of the book behind, and this made me mad. So I hid it, and she hasn't asked for it back. In the family, only my uncle said something nice. He asked me to sign his copy, and I did, and when I handed him the pen back he said he was going to sell it on ebay because it had been touched by a "famous author."

Bills

Last week, I discovered that the three mortgage payments which the bank offered to defer and tack on to the end of the loan became due, which means that in December I have to pay September, October, November as well. This is the same mortgage company holding a portion of my insurance payment until I hire an inspector ($350) to check on the house and approve of the repairs. Not quite sure how they expect us to complete the repairs with they extra cash they're holding and the three monthly payments they expect. I lost it on the phone.

And when I recovered I went to the toystore and bought Christmas presents. Then I paid the kids' tuition. And don't you know that yesterday I got a check for living expenses in the exact amount that I owe. Go figure.

We are in the financial position to be able to juggle this out--maybe not the exact way we want, but we can do it. There are so many who can't, for various reasons, and of course there are people like my brother who have lost everything, possible even the hoe of rebuilding, and still have a mortgage to pay. You know things are bad when you find your spirits lifted by the thought of a FEMA trailer in the driveway of your decimated home.

Home for the Holidays

My computer is ill, I don't have an internet connection at home, and my head is in the sand. That's why I haven't been writing. And why bother, when the news is never that good. We are back in our home, but I feel like a squatter. Last night was the first really cold night, and there was air blowing in from underneath the doors, and through all these chinks we were unaware of. So depressing. I still have tile to group, trim to paint, other trim to cut . . . all sorts of things. We are waiting to find a carpenter to install our doors for a reasonable price. Currently, we have the old, rain swollen ones. Also, my house is crowded with my mother and brother and animals. None of us ever can relax. I did get a big big Christmas tree, and I let the kids decorate it, which means that all of the ornaments are on one branch. For outside decorations we festooned the large debris pile with mini lights.