524: falling behind

It's strange how small weeks can whip by in such frantic succession. I will give snippets:

- The semester has ended, which is an enormous relief, though, because of sicknesses and other disruptions, I may have to take an incomplete in one class with the goal of wrapping that up before my maternity leave is over. Most importantly, I got grades in--early--and finished thesis seminar.

- Just after the semester ended, my friend Emily hosted a dinner to celebrate the release of my chapbook The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake. We went to the Craftsman; I loved the Brussels sprouts. The table was filled with a dozen of us, and Emily had a cake made in the image of the cover. It's pretty remarkable. (Mmm, carrot.)

- Christmas was spent in Wisconsin; indeed, we braved the five-hour trek with my 38-week pregnancy progress, which turned out to be fine, our hospital bag strapped into the trunk, our car seat beside it. It was actually the visit that became the challenge--as Christmas Eve turned to Christmas, I contracted the stomach virus that had encumbered a nephew and a mama-in-law, though this was a bit more fierce for me, thirty-five bouts of illness in one day with three loads of laundry cycling, reducing me to a desperate child. I'm close to better now, but it certainly crushed me more than I expected, eclipsing the morning sickness for a few days.

- We've had several winter storms, one a full-on blizzard, in the past few weeks. The snow is up to our windows. The first was twenty inches, and Christmas Eve, while I was enjoying a few final moments of health, our town was getting covered in seven more inches (and several snows in between).

- I'm due in a week, essentially. For the gory details: I'm mildly cramping, and my mucus plug has begun to slip as of this afternoon. This means exactly what I could have told you without the earlier signs: labor could begin in a matter of hours or a matter of weeks. Very helpful, these early signs of labor, yes? My skin covers such a taut uterus; I don't feel as if there is any where else for the minnow to go. But I do hope she'll hold out until January, which is so very close. While my friend Michelle actually had a Christmas baby (10 lbs, 10 oz., named Crosby James McWoolery), I'd like more space from the raucous holiday.

I deeply look forward to the other side of this pregnancy. I've loved feeling her so close to me, those internal kicks and nudges, the reason why I gave her this little nickname, but I'm most certainly ready to meet her and begin this new journey.

I also deeply miss being outdoors. I know it is too cold for an infant to be outdoors for long, but I yearn for those deep tromps in the woods Ryan and I take with the dogs. I haven't been mobile in a great long while. Making it from class to class was enough draining effort, and at the shallow end of this virus, my snippets of energy are spent nesting as best I can.

516

Sometimes events converge: my book is due 12/15; my baby 1/6.

This week: edits of the proofs, so many other little details related to the chapbook, as well as a new draft of my thesis. And commenting on student poems. For tomorrow.

One of my duties was to scan and send photographs of my grandfather, in case the publisher wants to insert a few on the extra blank pages in the back. I made a little set pertaining to the chapbook, cleverly titled The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, which is mostly photos of him, but some of the book, some that illustrate a few of the poems themselves, such as these dahlia bulbs and my grandmother at her sink, both from poems that appear in this anthology, and the silty feet from "Uniform Urn."


Here's the front and back of the book my sister designed and executed, or one variation thereof. I'm really floored with how talented she is; I think, if you need any graphic design work done, you should send her a little note, or send me one, and I'll pass it along. (She doesn't have a portfolio up online just now, but I'm sure she will some day soon, and for now, you can glance through her flickr page. You can see other amazing things she's done, like this save the date for her wedding next summer, which is two days from our wedding anniversary, so sweet).

513: with new book, comes new webpage

The above image is what my webpage looked like, the not oft-updated space that listed a few humble poems, was built from scratch, whatnot.

There's not so much new to tell, a few extra poems, a chapbook. We used a template, and Ryan sat down and banged out a new set of pages for me this weekend, and I do love it so.

We'll likely already update it some time after this weekend; I have a few more blurbs for the chapbook coming and I'd like to add links to Alchemy: Poetry and Yoga as well as Hedgebrook, a place I one day hopehopehope to have a residency.

And the below image. A new welcome.

511: revisiting a prior post (news)

I finally was able to re-publish 500. The announcement is up: My humble chapbook, The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, won the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Award, which means it will be published. In about two months, in fact, if all goes well.


The above is the cover my sister designed.

My ISBN is 978-0-9788931-7-0.

The publisher's website is here, where you will eventually be able to order copies online. I'll also have my own set to sell at readings and through local bookstores and whatnot.

Edits are coming along, blurbs are being written, and I'm thinking about author photos and short bios. Thinking about these things and impending due dates and the thumps of the minnow and writing a thesis and keeping up with grading and getting a full night's sleep. It's a fantastically busy time. I feel calm and quiet and good.

500

What lovely news for a 500th post: this morning I received a phone call, letting me know my chapbook manuscript, The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, won the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Award (which comes with a cash prize!). My brain is, of course, abuzz, with this news, with my lack of sleep, with my first day of teaching, with five months of incubating the baby, with the I'm getting a chapbook published celebration in my head. This afternoon, I turn in a first draft of my full-length manuscript. I feel as if I'm on a trajectory I only imagined when I was younger, as if I'm doing all those things to make myself A Poet, and I've stepped out of myself, a little trembly and enthralled.