Crazy week! Or two. Fighting a cold and losing, succumbing to aches, pains, fatigue, trying to ignore H1N1 fear mongering, largely by the press and government. I was just discussing it with my niece and she said a friend was in panic mode and saying, “Did you hear about the healthy young man slayed by it?” Niece saw his picture and said he must have weighed 400 pounds. Apparently obesity is a complicating factor.

I don’t know, my GP says everyone should get vaccinated, to reduce the number of carriers, my naturopath says you have to eat a lot of dirt before you die, it’s natural and I swing back and forth. Naturally. I ignored previous plagues, even in Romania, the rumored origin of bird flu and never worried. People die of seasonal flu every year. This year’s variety, the swine flu is getting a lot of press and a bit harder to dismiss.

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time proofing the galleys for my new collection of verse, Three Blocks West of Wonderland that I told new FB friend Timothy Taylor was completed over a year ago. My still unpublished novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter is nearly as old as my dog and her chin is covered with white hair these days. In the meantime, it just keeps getting harder and harder to get into print. I’m trying to read the winds of change. Maybe I should just focus on producing CDs and videopoems in the future and forget about print altogether. Let it go. Big ego trip in many ways. Still, I can’t help it, I’m a page baby and very excited! Reading save me, as a girl, reading books and my dog.

The cover is in the works. Ekstasis has decided to go with the artist I recommended, Derek von Essen, who designed the Verse Map of Vancouver, which featured my poem Whore In The Eddy. Derek is such a talented guy, a photographer as well as a graphic designer. He came over last week and took my author photo. Woo hoo! You get a sneak peak; not sure this is the shot they’re going to use.

Agonizing over whether to use “Heather Haley” or “Heather Susan Haley” and leaning toward the latter. Seems I’m not the only Heather Haley in the world! Jim Christy suggested “Heather Sue”! Makes me think of Johnny Cash. That’s me, a country girl, when I’m not living in the city. Growing up, my surname was “Daneliuk.”  😮 My dad was Ukrainian. No one could pronounce it or spell it. I took my mother’s maiden name when I turned 18. Well, it turns out Dad isn’t my bio dad and I’m not Ukrainian. Funny how our bodies always know, certainly more than our conscious minds. That name never felt right and neither did *Dad*. I loved him but he could be such an asshole.

Jim and I like to bitch or maybe we’re commiserating. One of our favourite mutual pet peeves is tame, tepid Canadian writers. Jim calls them “housebroken.” Indeed they are churned and spewed out from universities and MFA programs to toil in the Creative Writing Industry. Another publisher, who was considering my manuscript said she thought my work was fresh, inventive, the language original. Karen Solie said that though my work can portray domestic situations, it is not domesticated. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t finish my post-secondary studies, ran away to play in a punk rock band. I had an inferiority complex over not having a degree and sometimes resent being ignored by the academy, the elite, but screw ’em. I’m too busy living life to sweat it much.

So what’s the book about? Several people have asked. Three Blocks West of Wonderland contains many allusions to flight, taking flight, being on the wing, which I was, certainly. (I love animals, fixated with birds particularly, horses and bears.) I fled, long ago, returned, ran away again, all this after surviving a childhood of abuse, moving around a lot, the perpetual new kid on the block, the bullied. I am a restless soul, a rambler, afflicted with itchy feet even when relatively settled. Never feel quite at home in my skin, in this world. *Wonderland* remains a fantasy.

The title is a handy metaphor for not quite reaching one’s destination, yet, missing the mark, a little off, feeling like you’re on the other side, where the grass is stubbly, and a paler shade of green. Ah, maybe I’m just a malcontent. I was an expatriate for many years and probably don’t feel quite at home anywhere, torn  between the city and country, the north and south, Canada and California. I like to think of myself as a citizen of the world, capable of adaptation, omnivorous as a grizzly.

Just as I wrote this I received a message from Julie Christensen, vocalist in the Divine Horseman and a post-punk Los Angeles cohort who said she was proud to have known Brendan and to be on an Club Lingerie poster. What a lovely thing to hear, especially during this sad time. I told her and my other LA friends thank-you and that I wished I was there. I miss them all, especially Peter and Brendan, taken too soon. Rather Ironic that mortality themed poems are in the forefront of my psyche with people dying left and right. Just heard punk rock drummer extraordinaire Chuck Biscuits died! Throat cancer. Guess I better buy a stack of condolence cards. I know I sound glib at times but it’s just to cover up my dismay and heartbreak.