Submitting

This morning I sent out my first poetry submission since October. It's hard to keep up, to catch up, since all the big family events. Lately I've felt like three people instead of one, keeping track of everyone's personal health details and doctor's appointments. A juggling* act and an identity challenge. (I have to put initials on my calendar,** so I know whose appointment it is.) Since my mother died, I'm down to two people,*** but even that's hard. Anyway, while I'm behind in many poetry-related things (submissions, reviews, new poetry features at EIL), at least I got this done, and the October submission is forthcoming this spring, so there's progress.

Meanwhile, I am participating in a solstice-to-solstice poetry-postcard writing project, and it is delightful to get postcards in the mail with such marvelous creativity on them. I love snail mail!

**Speaking of calendars, I need a hard copy calendar. Everyone tells me Google calendar is so easy, etc., but I know what I can handle (and I have a Google calendar for work). I use a slim, portable, free (from the Nature Conservancy) calendar I can slip in the side pocket of my black-and-white polk-dotted handmade (Sugar Creek Arts Festival) purse, and fill out in pencil (because my life contains many erasures). I also have a large, spiral-bound 2022-2024 weekly-monthly planner for my theatre life. It's all working, but it keeps me 1) split 2) hopping.

*Speaking of juggling, a college friend just reminded me on Facebook that I know/knew how to juggle. I juggled 3 oranges as Elvira in a college production of Blithe Spirit. My face was sort of mauve and lavender for that play, a directorial/make-up designer choice. Elvira is a ghost. I believe I must have been shocking to look it. I shocked my dad, who criticized the choice, to me, personally, as if I had made it, but that's another story (an ongoing story...we're still in it! Sigh...) I don't think I even put on that make-up. The designer did it every night.

***I'm one of them, but I'm fine. Routine exams, dentist, optometrist. Sort of slacking on that last. So it's a Slattern Day in the blog.

P.S. I don't have the 5-year butterly planner pictured above. I just like it.