Why do I have to learn everything the hard way? Why couldn’t a poet friend have warned me not to send my manuscript to just one publisher? Yes, I would have listened to that. I wasted an entire year, learning at the end that bad manners or not, a writer has to submit simultaneously. We need to organize more in this area but many writers are starting to protest and demand electronic submissions. Talk about going green. And do they think we live forever, have the time to wait six months or a year for a lousy acknowledgement.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have been able to help me poor mum. I have learned through experience, the hard way, what depression and anxiety are. I see now that she was suffering from both and it’s obviously genetic, why I’ve been afflicted as well. She was an undiagnosed mess. They did catch the adult-onset diabetes which she pretty much ignored. My mother was miserable, wouldn’t quit drinking and smoking, couldn’t quit I suppose. As far as she was concerned, she had nothing to live for with all her kids gone.

Out my window, chameleon clouds are tinged pink in the west, layered grey and azure to the east. I woke up to sunshine streaming through the windows. A few hours later it was snowing, heavily. Then the sun came out again. This cycle lasted all day. I heard it was hailing in the city. Wacky west coast weather! A snowing sun, snoring hounds at my feet.

Met with RPW label head Pam Southwell Tuesday to work on fund raising but found we had a long list of items to take care of, everything from cd production to promotion to tour planning. She gave me some pointers on ReverbNation and I gave her some regarding grant writing. We shared our dread of budgets, numbers and math phobia stories. Hers involved a bellowing father, mine a cruel teachers. I assured Pam, that she needn’t be intimidated by the process, that in my experience budgets are largely bullshit and that it could be fun actually, to imagine what your organization needs money for, which often winds up re-purposed.

A dear friend has been hit with pancreatic cancer. Last year started off with a friend dying of lung cancer. Our lifestyles are catching up with us. Am I next? Knock on wood and I swear not to be superstitious. Sitting in the hair salon for too long yesterday I saw the People magazine with a story about Patrick Swayze’s diagnosis and was not encouraged by what I read. She is being very brave between bouts of anguish and terror. I’m trying to be as supportive as possible but I wish there was more I could do.

I’m currently reading Shot In The Heart, Mikal Gilmore’s book about his brother Gary Gilmore, convicted murderer, executed by firing squad. I used to see Mikal in the LA Weekly offices when I worked there many moons ago. Wish I could talk to him about his book, commiserate. Apparently we were both raised by hillbillies. My family wasn’t quite as dysfunctional, my father not as violent but my mother took up the slack. Who wants to rate these things anyway? Still hard for me to go there in my mind which might explain why I can’t complete my bloody novel. Managed to work on a new poem and enjoy a bit of solitude though feeling frustrated at my efforts. Here it be, a work-in-progress and such as it is:

Green Wedding

Parser.
Professional.
Daily fixes, micro problems solved.
Weekly patents.
Annual Seuss tourist
in search of beneficence.
Identifies closely with SamIAm
though he is far more shy,
still, prepared to walk the plank
for love. He felt justified in groveling
one afternoon standing in a queue
next to a slender, flinty girl in diaphanous skirt
as she read a novel. This did not give him an In.
Though quite familiar with mythic archetypes,
the only fiction he might have time to read
was speculative. So, he offered her a chip.
She licked off the gravy and thanked him.
Mathematicians rule.

It was cute, the way they emailed each other
in the beginning of their romance, he surprised
to be receiving steamy emails,
uppercase renderings of undying devotion.
I’m not used to getting personal messages at work,
which she could only find endearing.

Planning throes for a wedding in emerald oaks
they could easily ignore water cooler talk
of Bush deployments and citizen reporters.
They spoke only of sunspots and three-tiered cakes.
Guest list growing too long he complained.
His jobless Sidney brother who shakes his head
at their astounding fidelity.
Her estranged twin sisters in their push-up bras.
Easy to pull out he thought.