Word Raccoon has been submitting poetry in this heat, no less. Big cheers to her!

She submitted to, I think, three journals, and that after she woke me at like 1:30 am and said we needed to talk.

I followed her downstairs where she insisted on Coke Zero at that ungodly hour and I told her she might have a problem.

She could not have cared less and said we were going to write.

We tried a blog post.

Nothing.

We tried the novel and hated it.

I gave her a line that had come to mind and let her at it.

She wrote a jagged poem with a hatchet last line as (nearly always,) she does, and then I went in with a paintbrush and softened it with one more line. (The poem below is not it.)

Then we went back to the novel. It was…not as bad as I remembered.

(There is a guy here on the café porch doing video calls and he has a British accent and the guy he’s talking to does as well and loves, no matter how charming you sound, I guess the raccoon and I will have to resort to AirPods this early. Good news is, as humid as it is, I’m betting he’s going to give up and go indoors first.)

I’ve been writing so many songs in my sleep, and I wake up and ask what I’m supposed to do with them and usually they’re snippets but I’ve done that much of my life but more now and once I was traveling by myself and came up with what was essentially a musical and I still remember a little bit of it but I have no clue what to do with these bits and pieces.

Or, well, any of it.

Also, today that raccoon and I wrote a birthday letter to put into a birthday card for a very special birthday friend whose birthday is coming up way too soon and WR had better toss it in the mail tomorrow! It is a joy to write to my dearest writing friend. It has been too long since I have seen her.

Speaking of cards, I really like cards. Even more than gifts. My family once gave me a card birthday, and I was delighted. For an…uhm…landmark birthday, I said no gifts, just cards, and I got some treasures, some homemade, labored over with love. Those I love most, but I appreciate them all, even postcards. Or photos turned into postcards.

WR says I’m boring her and likely you.

Maybe she’s right. But what does she know, dragging me out of bed like that when I thought we had my sleep schedule all figured out? She’s too groggy to know what’s good for her.

One of the poems I submitted today is “Self-Rising,” featuring Martha White flour and resultant biscuits. And jam. Or is it jelly?

Quick, which do you think I prefer? It won’t make sense unless you read it, but that’s pivotal to the poem.

Finished listening to Jane Austen’s Bookshelf during my early morning travels. The hard copy came in yesterday and yes, I still highly recommend it!

It has literary gossip, sex, intrigue, inside scoop on the erasure of women writers from literature, lit crit, men we hate, men we admire, literary luminaries, info on the rare book trade, and more.

And there’s no sense reading it unless you have either your local library catalog pulled up to request books, Project Gutenberg (they have books you can send to Kindle, you know, and always for free), or Amazon. You will come away with a list of books to read.

This makes me wish I had a little bookshop that sold paintings and had a room in the back for readings and exhibits. I would be so picky about the books allowed in there, though. Not the genres so much as no dusty musty books or yellowed ugly worthless ones. (If they weren’t worthless that would be something else. But you know which ones I’m talking about.) And you already know my opinion on caretaking valuable copies. That’s not for me.

Some books arrive like people you thought you’d lost and then, impossibly, find again on the shelf you hadn’t dared check.

It’s just a half dream. But a fun one.

What about owning a bookstall on the Seine in Paris? They have books and postcards, of course. (And more.)

Word Raccoon is no longer bored. She is taking notes and has now picked up a dry erase marker. A purple one. She’s sketching a bookshop with a coffeehouse attached, stained glass windows but not so dark you can’t see the light, a covered porch for writing, naturally, and a big Japanese maple out front.

There should be a performance pavilion outdoors for concerts and Shakespeare in the summer.

And behind it all, woods with a gentle trail for taking poems in progress and tangled novels for walks.

It should be open seven days a week and its hours should be from 6 am-2 am. Just in case.

Or, better yet, it should just have the key left in the door.

If you’ve seen my street, you know this scene I’m writing about:

Ring After Ring

Across the street a tree that fell last spring

Has lain, unaided, helpless, splayed

For all to see, its roots ashamed.

Unable to hold itself upright any longer,

Battled by winds until age, heartache, and breeze

Blew in its face.

On Father’s Day, the owner (former owner?)

Of the tree took a chainsaw and cut

Ring after ring, sections smaller, but still too

Heavy for one man.

Now, though, I see pieces of

These blessed things.

I know soon they will complete the work,

Haul it all away or

Someone will claim it for firewood and

To ash will go

All that beautiful longing.

Ok, I know the poem isn’t finished but I also don’t know what it needs exactly, but there it is.

What I won’t talk about today:

• The fact that this post was written both last evening and this morning.
• That Word Raccoon asked for space buns, and I tried this morning but IDK how and gave up, this after telling her she is too damn old for them, though if I could’ve managed them, I would’ve. I wanted to wave a twenty around the café and ask someone to do them for me. (They can’t be that hard, but my hair was dripping, and Mother Time that I can be some days, I was like hurry up!)
• That WR picked out my clothes last night and changed her mind about the shorts this morning.  (She actually wanted me to bring another outfit along in case she changes her mind, but I draw the line at a COSTUME CHANGE at the café. This is not community theater, Word Raccoon!
• That WR got miffed at a well-meaning guy at the café yesterday who told me to go indoors where the air was. He wasn’t suggesting, he was telling me. I smiled sweetly and said I might in an hour or so, but that I was perfectly fine where I was. He doesn’t know WR and I have built up resistance.
• That she has forgotten, once again, to bring along a high-protein snack — as much as she likes sweets, they feel gross in her and we have seen a falling off of the grief cookie binges at last. This morning, she shoved all the sugary cereals atop the fridge around until she found nice, simple, Kashi to which she added blueberries and walnuts. (Wait, I just went in and checked and though they don’t have any of their snack boxes, they’re making one “for you.” Yay!)
• That though WR slept in her yoga clothes, she side-eyed hard when I cued up the session. I bribed her with Coke Zero and she relented. (Shhh…don’t tell her but the step-down plan has begun. I figure in, oh…a couple of months she’ll be off the stuff. Don’t feel too sorry for her – remember I’m buying her Coke Zero earrings she can wear, and she can still have the stuff on special occasions.

And now it’s time to figure out what we are writing today, loves. But first I think I might have to eavesdrop a bit more on this guy…he’s talking to athletes about guys on national teams who are “top players”, and he is asking them recommend others to him that they know?

Hmm…I wasn’t listening enough to even know what sport.

Maybe a short story is writing itself over here. Maybe so. Wouldn’t be the first time.