I want...

... to do everything. Instead, I do nothing.

Normandy said it, not me — but it nicely sums up what I've been up to these past few weeks.

However, I'm cleaning up my act. Because (1) The Pedestal Magazine has just reopened its doors to submissions and I'm the editor on duty, (2) have re-scheduled myself to return to 30:30 tomorrow, (3) a rumor's been flying around that I've been abducted by aliens [i.e. myself and more of myself] and (4) there's something not quite healthy about watching all 13 episodes of Touching Evil in a single day — in bed, with popcorn.

Recent acceptances:

Mascara Poetry accepted three poems, Self-Portrait with Umbrella, A Warning about Attachments, Wu Jin Contemplates the Tattoo on a Soft Cheek for publication in their 3rd issue.

This is a neat journal with very eclectic tastes. While they're particularly drawn to the work of contemporary Australasian and Indigenous poets, they also consider works typed in English from other carbon-based lifeforms. And hey, they've just become a paying market (Aussie dollars). Check 'em out.

     Submission sent: 7 November 2007
     Reply date: 15 February 2008

• Chiron Review accepted three poems, Driving Home, Snow Globe and Sunday Morning Mass for a future issue. According to my —erm— Poet's Market 2000, it is "a quarterly tabloid using photographs of featured writers" (why am I suddenly thinking of the Rocky Horror Picture Show?) with a print run of "about 1000".

They accept e-mails submissions only from overseas writers.

     Submission sent: 15 February 2008
     Reply date: 25 February 2008

Recent publications:

• Have three poems, Black Tar Girl, Night, with Owls on Witch Trees and Commute under L. Ward Abel, who is the Featured Poet for February 2008 in Contemporary American Voices. So thrilled to be sharing space with Collin Kelley and Beverly Jackson!

• Was delighted to receive three copies of the Fall 2007 issue (Volume 3.2) of Marginalia and find Carol Frith, Paul Sohar and Dana Sonnenschein — whose works I came across and loved while doing TPM duty. This is one gorgeous magazine: flat-spined, full-color glossy card cover with around 160 pages of poetry, fiction and art. A tiny, tiny prose poem, My SimCity Llama Has a Cold makes its debut sneezes on page 15.

• While Valerie and I were preparing the final draft of our Bundles mss for Texture Press, I summed up enough courage to query about the publication of my poem, further adventures into private parts in Painted Bride Quarterly — I signed the contract two years ago, didn't hear about their Pirates issue anymore, and didn't know what to write under the Acknowledgments page (finally opted to pull it out of the mss).

Anyway, I asked and found out that their print annual is just hot off the press and heading my way as soon as I provide them with a "brick/mortar" address. I know. I'm a woman of little faith.

Talking of faith —

There's a... **whispering** ... priest who's been after me since my mom's funeral. He got my e-mail address. He is concerned about the salvation of my soul. He wants me to confess my sins. To him.

All my nightmares about stalkers and Satan have come true.

It's the Year of the Rat!

Here's to wishing everyone a wonderful Lunar Year ahead — with lots of great surprises, charm and luck.

Sliding slowly back to normality:

Got back last Saturday. Didn't really feel much like blogging or doing social work (what I've come to call my mailbox and phone book). Not really sad or even brooding, just all very Mark Ehling's I Seem to be Dead Inside.

My mom passed away on January 11th.

She was practically only waiting for me. When she heard that I'd already arrived, she stopped eating and just let go. It was, I think, a good death. We had some nuns come over who "lifted her to the light" with their prayers and mass songs while she was dying. It was agonizing to watch her slow slide into death, but we (including my mom) agreed that death was preferable to the pain which had become excruciating and almost impossible to manage in the last few weeks.

Here we were clowning around a few hours before my wedding (2001).

She was buried — wearing that dress in the photo — on the 17th after a 6-day wake. I was practically living (and sleeping) at the funeral parlor since my brother and his wife had to go home at night to be with their kids. My job was to entertain the guests during the day because tradition makes them expect to be entertained, offered food and drink, etc. Rather draining. Afterwards, we all decided NOT to have a wake once we're dead. Just cremation within 24-hours. Spare our loved ones, puh-lease.

Finally attended yoga class again last Tuesday. And glad I did. It gave me a bit of pep — enough to go back to blogging, answering my e-mail and limit my daily staple of PC games. Eventually, I'll get back to writing and submitting — haven't done either in like two months.

Not-so-recent acceptance:

Parameter Magazine, a UK-based print journal accepted three poems, A Driving Student Conceptualizes Rain, My Gorilla Suit Was Outfitted With Two-Thousand Christmas Lights and Luckily, Near Memphis in a future issue (probably issue 7) due out in Fall 2008.

     Submission sent: 25 September 2007
     Reply date: 15 January 2008

Recent publications:

• My poem, Agoraphobia is in the January 2008 issue of The Chimaera. It's kind of creepy how it foresaw my mom's death prior to it happening.

• Have got a kinky poem, Please Meet My Breasts in Issue 45 of Rising — a UK-based print journal edited by Tim Wells, who was so kind as to invite me to send work. Fellow blogger, Rob's got stuff here, too entitled Hangover Hotel. A poem after my own heart. Hee.

• With much gratitude to the same Tim Wells who submitted on my behalf, have also got my Driving Instructor’s First Gastrointestinal Cramp finding its page in Pen Pusher (#8) — a terrific flat-spined, UK-based print journal.

So, what else is new —

A decided to bring home some fresh kefir grains again. In a sealed plastic container. Saran-wrapped. In her checked-in luggage.

NEVER AGAIN.

A has learned her lesson. A hasn't yet finished hand-washing her soiled underwear. A hasn't yet scrubbed down the interior of her luggage in the shower like a dog. But she knows. No more traveling with kefir or other micro-organisms. The husband has put his foot down — on the stench in the hallway, on the kefir in his duty-free cigarettes.