ajodasso

Ear situation: the infection itself seems to be mostly gone, but there's still the problem of my (lack of) hearing. I'm going back to the clinic for a third time on Tuesday, and I'm desperately hoping the final approval on my MassHealth will come through by then, as that's what's prevented the nurse practitioner (who's doing the best she can with a bad situation) from referring me straight to an ENT. I miss the NHS so much it's unbearable. I'd have been referred to a specialist by now. I should have been seeing one from the very beginning.

The full-time post at the museum, after three weeks of deliberation on their part, went to somebody else. Which is just as well, given I'm still waiting to hear from the antiquarian-book guys (the latter is a better job). Still, it's one more thing to make me feel beyond crushed. Three weeks of juggling a mutant ear bug with lots of waiting piled on top just...

I would do anything to get out of this.

It seems that the three ear infections I endured almost exactly a year ago, all in quick succession, were not sufficient. Something happened on either my flights out to Vegas or the subsequent drive across the border into Utah; in any case, the result is that I returned to Massachusetts on Monday with what seemed to be a burst eardrum in full, infected swing. The antibiotics my father gave me made no difference, so I ended up in a medical clinic yesterday morning, and one look in my left ear showed them that the canal was completely swollen shut (hence my almost complete loss of hearing). They couldn't even see my eardrum, so they inserted a wick, sent me away with a second type of antibiotics and ear drops, and told me to come back Tuesday, at which point they'll remove the wick hopefully be able to make a more accurate diagnosis. In the meantime, the wick and infection combined are driving me mad. I can't sleep for the throbbing.

In other, happier news, you should purchase these most excellent anthologies from rose_lemberg, as I have poems in them, along with tithenai, sovay, cafenowhere, samhenderson, alankria, alexa_seidel, domparisien, snakey, and many other formidably talented writers:





P.S. Almost forgot, the following, Mandragora, recently released by Scarlet Imprint, contains two poems from me, plus numerous other poems and essays to dazzle the senses, and is undoubtedly one of THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VOLUMES YOU WILL EVER OWN:

"Stone Ghost" will be appearing in Issue 4 of inkscrawl.

I'm excited about this one, as it's the poem I wrote about the absolutely huge Kronosaurus fossil housed at Harvard Natural History Museum!

My new poem, "Spell" (complete with recording), kicks off the issue.

In other news, I've done some serious maintenance to my full list of publication credits. Many of you have proved time and again that you have sharper eyes (and longer memory) than I do. If I've missed anything, thwack me a good one. And tell me, of course.

For this stop, I'm offering a new poem that's a follow-up to one of my previous works (which is linked in the title below). Happy touring, friends and fellow poets!

( Five Times I Lived by Water: Reprise )

Once a week, James, my mother-in-law, and I pick up James's aunt and James's cousin's 2 year-old son in order to go do something fun. Usually this means going out to lunch and browsing shops (or something like that), but this week's activity was driving out to Purgatory Chasm and hiking the Charley's Loop trail.

Running around in this kind of environment was typical as my childhood went; the number of dangerous things I was permitted to do all by myself (or with very minimal supervision) on a regular basis would, I imagine, be fairly shocking to most parents these days. At first, Nathan (the 2 year-old in question) kept repeating the same thing: (gasp) "Look! A rock!" (an even deeper gasp) "Look! A big rock!" As you can imagine, I started to wonder after a while, but then it hit me: each one of these exclamations was made with an increasing sense of wonder. All I had to do was listen to his intonation to realize that if he'd had the adjectives to modify each new rock he was pointing out, he would undoubtedly have used them.

Is this proof of how seldom today's kids are permitted to run free out in the woods—or even just outdoors, period? So little that each rock, each tree, each twig, is worthy of pure, delighted astonishment? I loved watching Nathan explore, but I was also vaguely saddened at the possible implications of what I was seeing. When the time came, he didn't want to leave, and he took a wand-like stick he'd found and a pocketful of glittering granite and quartz pebbles with him. I taught him the words lichen and glacier.

It made me realize how much I had, as a child, taken for granted.

Spring seems to have come early everywhere.

For weeks now, I've been formulating a post on what it is to be perpetually positioned on the in-between, as it were, in multiple aspects of my existence. However, I don't think today is the day to make it, as our community is, understandably, in mourning:

Adrienne Rich dies aged 82

You will be sorely missed, sister poet and name-sharer of mine.

Inside, you will find a new poem from me, "Parallax," plus a recording of me reading it.

I think this may be the first time that my voice has appeared alongside my writing. You'll also find poems, recordings, and nonfiction from a number of other talented individuals.

Everything in the flat that's staying behind is packed up and safely in storage with madeline_seb. One more meeting with the lawyer on Friday, and then we're returning to the States on the 27th. In the meantime, I'm waiting to hear the outcome of a phone interview (for a job in the US) I had a couple of weeks ago. Could be a game-changer.

Once again, it's going to be hard going back. A month in London has made life feel almost back to normal. I've gotten to see so many of you, and I really hope it won't be the last time for a long time.

"Carnal Knowledge" and "Letters to Lost Friends & Imaginary Lovers" will be appearing in Strong Verse. Getting back to my roots, in a way!