Poetry Collection Submitted

I finally found a title I liked, LOVE AMONG THE TOMBSTONES. We gave the collection a final polishing and I sent it off to my agent, who is currently reading it. I assume when she finishes, she’ll send it off to my editor at Knopf, who is expecting it. I think it’s a strong collection, but marketing got in the way of my last submission, so who knows?

Woody harvested the last beans and pulled the plants, took down the towers, undid the string that the vines climbed and put everything away till next year. We’re now harvesting Swiss chard, leeks and Brussels sprouts, with parsnips on the menu soon. A little salad (but the rabbits got to most of it). The last three summers have been so hot and lasted well through October that any cool fall crops I started all died. So, this year, I thought I was smart to wait. And of course, the weather fooled me: we had a cool fall and I could have started the fall crops inside and transplanted them. As it turns out, I started all those crops way too late and we may get a frost this weekend. I hope not, but the mainland will definitely get cold enough.

I’ve started cooking leeks and Swiss chard but will not get to Brussels sprouts till Sunday. We have company Saturday evening – Gigi and Ralph, John and Bruce, and Natasha, down from Dartmouth for Oyster Fest. Oyster Fest usually enjoys good weather but today is cold, windy and rainy. Tomorrow is supposed to be better – chilly but sunny.

I’m relieved that Grump called off the televised execution. He felt that shooting a disabled man in a wheelchair would not be a good show on TV. Horrible reason, but good outcome. His “war” secretary doesn’t just want to take the country back to the 50’s but back centuries, to public executions as entertainment.

I’m going to take Monday off from submitting poems to zines and instead work with Nina to ‘excavate” my office. I’ve been working fulltime on first THE HOUR OF MY DEATH – out  in less than two weeks and available for purchase already – and then the first new poetry collection for several years. My office is a mess. Piles of paper everywhere, books in corners, cat toys that need to be put together and haven’t, zines that need to be filed because I have poem[s] in them. Empty water bottles. Old keyboards (I go through them at an alarming rate). Floor hasn’t been swept in ages. I have never been much of a housekeeper. Woody says it took us six years to decide to get married because neither of us wanted to be the wife.

I am hoping to get to potting herbs to come in for the winter. I wanted to do it this week, but we don’t have potting soil. I had not realized that we had used it all up. Woody bought a few bags when he shopped and I’m hoping to get to it tomorrow, when it is supposed to be  pleasanter outside. Today is chilly, windy and wet. I’d like to try to save at least a couple of my rosemary plants, pot some chives and maybe a tarragon. We’ve already brought in my long-lived bay tree and a Christmas cactus that had belonged to my friend Gigi’s mother and may be a century old, oregano, and red begonias in bloom. And a huge aloe vera. I burn myself a lot cooking and depend on aloe vera plants to heal me.