Clearly, I'm going through another dry spell with my writing (or maybe the last one just never ended). I haven't posted anything in a couple weeks, and it's largely because I haven't really had much time to write anything creative. I've also let other aspects of my life take over my oh-so-healthy List o' Priorities. I'm running a triathlon in a couple weeks in Seattle and need to improve my mile, I have to get my classes prepped for midterms, my pets are devising new ways every week to earn emergency trips to the vet's, I have a book coming out, I still haven't gotten that reading series started downtown, and I haven't practiced my violin in two weeks. Here's what I want to do:
1. Get back into a routine of practicing creative writing for at least two hours on one of my days off. I was pretty good about this in Georgia, but I've let myself get sidetracked here in Colorado. Tom gave me a "nice" compliment today from his tent in Kuwait. "Abby, you've got to start writing more often. I really love your work when you're happy and comfortable; your poems get hilarious. I hate it when you're miserable. Your poetry gets boring." So... yeah. That was a compliment, I promise.
2. Use my running/exercise as a break from writing/teaching, simply for the sake of my poor eyeballs, which are already disadvantaged as it is. Walk longer after my jogs just to enjoy a few extra deep breaths. The weather is getting gorgeous here.
3. Start advertising for violin students again, with the added note that I won't actually be able to begin lessons until April, when my life settles down slightly. This is assuming I have several people just waiting out there, desperately wishing I would take them on.
4. Give my pets a pep rally so they'll stop hurting themselves so damn often.
5. Make a list of all the good things that happen when Tom's deployed. Less laundry, cleaner bathrooms, more mushrooms in my dinners, lots of What Not to Wear, meditation music blasting while I write, letters in the mailbox, longer writing group meetings. I've got to cheer myself up somehow.
6. Ease up on insisting this reading series start as soon as possible. I'm going to be here for a while. I can frickin relax.
All right. A plan! I feel better already. Now I can post a poem. This is the first piece I've written in the past two weeks, and I haven't had a chance to show it to anyone yet. Here she be.
(I plan on keeping everyone posted on the book's release date, as well as date/time info for the reading series. I can only kick back for so long.)
WOMAN WITH MANNERS
That’s what I like to see
a woman with manners
who leaves her car unlocked
in the grocery store parking lot
after stuffing her trunk full
of toilet paper lettuce brie bleach
leaving it under the careful watch
of four teenagers planted
like moldy beanpoles
outside the Family Dollar
this woman shoves her cart
back through the Safeway sliding doors
taking tiny strides because
she’s not paying another twenty
dollars for Mrs. Lee
to stitch up the side seam
not after that time she saw Mrs. Lee
shove one glowing white arm
up the front of her husband’s blue polo
with her husband still inside it
even though Mrs. Lee said she was
just trying to feel the rip
this woman plugs her empty cart
back into the bumpered lanes inside
without even glancing back
at her tinted windows at Family Dollar
and when she lets go the cart handle
there’s a lady shaped like a teapot
stopped behind her saying
I couldn’t help but notice you’ve got
enormous ankles just like mine
where did you get your boots
and the woman with manners
says she bought them online
and the lady like a teapot whistles and says
dang I never buy anything from the internet
then walks away leaving our heroine
standing in front of the cart tracks
like the head of a great silver centipede
wiping her hands with a sanitizing napkin
scraping quickly the underside
of each white fingernail.
...
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