Open Palm Press has been producing a series of pocket-sized poetry booklets for Haiti relief. #10 in the series consists of three poems by me: "Drop," "Portion," and "Assignment."
The cost is $3 per copy; please click
here for details on how to place an order. Thanks!
My minister is a great pastor overall, but she does have her blind spots: I encountered one of them this past Sunday when, in her sermon, she spoke with pity of someone whose social life was primarily online rather than in the "real" world.
*sigh*
It's easy to point out where the disconnects stem from: the minister is around 15-20 years older than me and an extrovert. Her job
depends on her being able to interact with people face-to-face at will 24/7 with equanimity, no matter how unreasonable some of those people can be. (This is something I really wish more people considering div school would get asked sooner rather than later: in my experience, too many of them aren't realistic about the demands of providing pastoral care.)
Whereas my own work depends on me spending a lot of time alone, and that's how I prefer it. I do have a decent set of social skillz - this week, I started/sustained a fair number of conversations during Sunday's coffee hours, chaired a meeting, attended two lunches and
a wine tasting, and have a third lunch date lined up for tomorrow. I would've gone to movies with the BYM Sunday night if I hadn't fallen asleep.
But these are equally "real," in my book: Trading snark and squee with another tennis junkie over the ongoing mishegoss that is Indian Wells. (Short version: Nadal looking great, how did I end up rooting for Nico over Blake, and davai
Elena!) The box of
gorgeous tea that just arrived in the mail, from a longtime
Snape/Lupin-and-now-manga copine. Postcards from St Kitts, South Africa, downtown Seattle... The gift-card-as-casserole another longtime Snupin friend sent when my mother died
two years ago today, along with literally dozens of condolence notes from others. The acquaintances and strangers who quote and rec not only my fics but my poems (and sometimes my rants, eep). The fun of being generous in like wise to others. The quiet satisfaction of volunteer work done late at night and behind the scenes so that old texts and new stories reach more people.
I enjoyed reading
Ivan Ljubicic's perspective about various aspects of playing on the ATP tour. As a fan of both Roger and Rafa, I loved the opening:
The people on tour are different than they were 15 years ago. You see more players doing so much more fitness. I remember coming into the locker room 10-15 years ago and guys would be talking about other sports and now if you want to survive you have to be focused 100 percent. That's what Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal have done for our sport as they are asking 100 percent out of all of us. If you are not totally committed, you can't even play with them, and I'm not even talking about beating them, I'm talking about how ridiculous you would look out there if you are not playing your best and totally there mentally because you can't even compete.
The current haul from the library includes a concert recording of
Chess (the one with Josh Groban, Idina Menzel, and Adam Pascal as the leads),
Tired of Being Tired (like my tangent above, I don't truly expect it to say much of anything new to me, but seeing old truths in different type is sometimes the kick my brain needs to get out of its ongoing ruts), and Posy Simmonds's
Tamara Drewe, blurbed as a graphic-novel retelling of
Far from the Madding Crowd (my favorite Thomas Hardy novel).
But before I get to any of those: thank-you notes, housework, spreadsheets, several hundred more words, and a long walk (or at least twenty minutes involving some variation of situps). Onward!
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