Just re-read my post from yesterday and now I'm thinking, For God's Sake Woman. All these wishes to write and to do more LIVING but the records show you're just doing the same freelance thing for months. After reading Nickel and Dimed about others' struggles, I have been more mindful of what I have, and since a dr. appt. today I've been thinking that I need to get going with things. Move forward. Jump. Make better use of my time. Be the mapmaker.
 
I spent a weekend years ago hiking in eastern MA with a wonderful friend. She and I talked our lives through while exploring forest paths. When we got back to her house, she wrote out on a small piece of paper her own way of handling the world:
 
A Goal
A Plan
A Date
Make It Happen
 
She gave the paper to me, and I carry it every day. And now that I read it again, I see that I have been avoiding this third point. A date is a scary thing. It means there will be change at a very specific point in time, and I suck at change. And I so like where I am right now. But a date, yes, I see. It is necessary to set one, else how will things go? I'll be looking at the blog in a year, having thought it was only a few months ago when I wrote this, and seeing how my life has kept on around me without my moving at all. And then I'll take a breath and it will be even later and I'll wish I had set a date and made thing happen, and undoubtedly by then my life as it is before me now will no longer exist for me to move into. And that's not something I can allow.
 
So there it is. A date. Something specific. Let's see how that goes.

Can I just admit that I am addicted to watching Celebrity Poker on Bravo. It distracts me from all the work I have to do.
 
So, the Sierra Nevada College Review poem crossed with my submission to the South Dakota Review, and the very nice editor at SDR wanted to print my SNCR poem!! I was very disappointed that I could not print my poem there, but he was so amicable and told me to certainly send him more in the future, which I will. I've been trying to get printed in SDR for years, so I'll start again.
 
Other than that, nothing is happening with the creative writing. It's all freelance editing. Romance and young adult lit and lab manuals. I have the creative ideas but no time to get them fleshed out. Same old story.
 
I do have a reading in Sept. so I'm planning to write new poems in August. I also plan to get back to the gym. I also plan to start the 100 Words site again. Lots of plans.
 
Aside from writing I'm set for two concerts, which is always a great summer thing. Saw Fahrenheit 9/11, of course. Hit the Met to take in my favorite painting again, followed by dinner in Chinatown. Spent time in MA with family: An afternoon in beautiful sun and breeze at the Brimfield antique fair. Finally read Nickel and Dimed. Went out with sis and friends to a restaurant in East Hampton. Pear and smoked cheese, grilled tuna, scallion rice, cucumber salad, hazelnut mousse. Trés chic. :)  Did I say I plan to go back to the gym?
 
Gotta get back to the poker. It's terrible how it sucks me away from really working.