Finally spring has full come. Not shorts spring. Real earth spring. Almost all the perennials that survived this terrible winter have poked out of the earth. Later crocuses, scilla, lungwort, early daffodils, witch hazel are all in bloom. Woody planted spinach seeds and broccoli plants I started in February. I planted six kinds of lettuce, arugula, red and purple radishes and put out bok choi plants. I also planted dahlias and calla lilies in the greenhouse. Tomorrow or Monday I’ll start the very last seeds I do inside until late June when I start cole crops. the garlic is up and looks happy. The pussy willows are out but we neglected to prune them so they are too far over our heads to cut any. The bushes and a few trees are visibly budding. The chipmunks and red squirrels are everywhere, driving the cats crazy. Goldfinches are in full brilliant mating plumage. I wrote a couple of poems this week but when working inside, mostly we have been preparing another box for the University of Michigan archives [they bought my papers ten years ago]. Woody has been having ongoing disgusting trouble with Social Security. They transposed two numbers in his birth date and won’t believe his birthday was April 9^th and not September 4^th. He can’t get Medicaid. It has gone on and on and one. He brought in his passport as instructed. After waiting over an hour, he was told he needed his birth certificate. When he brought that it, they said he needed one with an official stamp. It took two weeks to get that from New York. Then they said they needed to speak with New York to confirm. But New York doesn’t ever answer the phone. and on and on and on. in the meantime we have to pay health insurance at four times the cost of Medicare every month. I am still trying to get paid for my March 3^rd reading at Buffalo State.I gave them a bargain price. I made my own hotel reservations because they couldn’t get around to it and am still waiting to be reimbursed along with my reading fee. I cheerfully ate terrible pizza {don’t get me wrong, I normally like pizza just fine] because the sponsor was 45 minutes late picking us up and there was no time for a decent meal. I read very well to a full house. Colleges have become more and more like corporations. They expect you to somehow forget about getting paid. They hold on to the money as long as possible hoping you’ll go away or die or develop Alzheimers. My income is mostly from gigs. It’s hard to make academics who get a regular salary understand that I actually need the money and expect to get it right after I read or in a reasonable amount of time. I have my first bookstore reading [as opposed to university readings] for my new book MADE IN DETROIT. This coming Tuesday @ 7 pm at the Booksmith in Brookline, MA. The Army Corp of Engineers has fucked up the Sagamore Bridge again and so we’ll have to allow a lot of time to get off the Cape and will hit Boston at rush hour. Woody has a live interview on WOMR, so we can’t leave until mid afternoon. But I always like reading at that venue.