Now Playing: These Arms of Mine by Otis Redding. Ah, Otis! All the Otis!

She’s on a break, Neal. She needs a break. (Quote from Dirty Dancing. The song above was used in the movie, too.)

Yesterday morning, Word Raccoon was fully in charge, sticking up her middle finger at the world. She was over it, although she never quite said what she was over.

She turned off her alarm and just got up whenever she pleased, drank straight from the shower head, decided caffeine could wait, and refused to wash her hair. Which, to be fair, didn’t really need it.

She swapped the pants I laid out for shorts under a dress, skipped jewelry except her favorite Van Gogh-inspired earrings, and only wanted to read outdoors in the searing sun.

I was down for that.

Breakfast? Not interested. Not even when I ordered her favorite smoothie bowl. She barely touched her iced coffee, even though she declared it fine.

After she’d read a couple of stories, I checked in with her to see if she wanted to maybe, you know, write? Or submit poetry? Deadlines, you know.

She snapped at me that we’d write when she was good and ready.

I nodded at her and pulled up Submittable and just glanced at it.

“What are you looking at?” she asked over my shoulder.

“Oh, nothing. Just, you know, these opportunities that will be closed in a couple of days. NBD.”

“No big deal? No big deal? What do you mean? Once they’re closed, they’re closed. You mean you’re not even going to consider sending work to them?”

I tried not to smile that WR had fallen right into my trap.

I slammed the lid on my computer.

“It’s okay. I know you’re tired. I know you want a break, and no one would blame you. You’ve been a freight train bearing down on life for months. You have earned a day off. No biggie.”

She grabbed my coffee and drank it down, crumpled the now-empty plastic vessel, and threw it on the ground. (Which I immediately made her retrieve, because I revere the earth and she knows it.)

We put together packets. We wrote cover letters. We tweaked our bio. We submitted.

(You know, that term is unfortunate. WR and I do not like it. We do not submit, we do not give in. We yield. Because we see the sense in it, or because we want to. We have agency, dammit!)

But no, no, the rest of my life I will be “submitting” my work because that’s the term my damned career, my passion, my art, insists upon. I know it doesn’t mean that in that case, but come on, you have to think about it every time you hit that “submit” button.

Or maybe I’m the only one with such keen rebellion vibes.

Maybe I should propose alternate terms when it comes to “submitting” your work.

Offer? Share? Toss? Throw? Lob? Pass? Abandon??

Anyway, we submitted some poems, and by the time we got home, she even deigned to allow me (because WR does not do chores) to do laundry, empty and load the dishwasher, and prep supper.

I even cleaned the microwave with the Angry Mama gadget. If you don’t have one, you should, because it’s ridiculously satisfying. Fill it with vinegar and water, microwave for 5–7 minutes, and gunk wipes right off. There you go: as a guy in Barcelona once said to me, Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing, baby. My friend who was with me and I couldn’t quit laughing about it and said it the rest of the trip. I think he was complimenting me. Laugh/cry emoji.

And yes, WR even went to the gym, but only after I promised and threatened and checked the forecast and told her we wouldn’t have to over the weekend because they’re not open. (I don’t have to tell you what beverage I offered her, which she greedily drank after. Sorry, WR, but you’re not getting any today.)

While all this melodrama unfolded, I listened to episodes of the Secret Life of Books podcast, which I highly recommend it. I had already listened to their “No Breakfast with Jane Austen,” which was EXCELLENT, and today, episodes about Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop. The podcast’s episode titles alone are worth the click, but I learned things about both poets I never knew. (More on both of them later, at some point, I’m sure.)

When the hunger finally came calling (the heat!), I made a pasta salad. The kind featured in every 1980s women’s magazine, a cold dish meant to wait patiently in the fridge, getting better, not worse, for the waiting.

Here’s how I do it (or really, how I don’t do it, because this recipe is all about not measuring and using whatever you want. Geesh, am I also rebellious about recipes? Maybe so. Now that doesn’t always pay off.):

• Cook whatever short pasta you have (rotini if you want to go full vintage). Drain, rinse with cold water.
• Toss in veggies: cherry tomatoes cut in half, sliced cucumbers, maybe some red onion slices (soaked in ice water for 10 minutes to tame that bite).
• Add cheese: shredded, cubed, whatever’s in the fridge.
• Fry up some bacon, crumble it in. (Just a hint: If you don’t do this, it will likely not count as a meal to those of the male persuasion. Not trying to be all stereotypical, but name the bacon before you say what dinner will be.)
• Boil some eggs, slice, and add them if you like eggs.
• Pour on your favorite dressing: Italian is classic and bottled is fine, duckies. In fact, if you want full nostalgia, go with Wishbone. I prefer Ken’s, usually. Or my own. Don’t ask the recipe because I eyeball it and I really have tried to break it down for a friend but IDK how to…
• Mix it all up, cover it, and chill in the fridge. Make enough for leftovers, because the heat isn’t going anywhere.

I’m adding this recipe because creatives have to eat, and sometimes we forget that we don’t have to make a big deal about it. Eat, eat!

I did convince WR to write a few poems before she went to bed, but they are just flashes. And gosh, I hope I didn’t give the impression when I spoke about how many poems I have stockpiled that I think quantity is quality.

My guess is that many of these are just echoes of the main ones I will write, like, decades of emotion spilling out in any way it can, waiting to be shuttled to the appropriate category: You, novel. You, poem. You, essay. You know. As one does.

Or how this one does.

And I wish there were a strand you could put poems through where it would say “good” or “bad,” like a holiday bulb. I’m applying the principles of prose revision and my gut. When it comes to fiction, if nothing “snags” me when I read a page, if it flows in a way that doesn’t make me pause, I know I’ve done all I can. With my poetry, I’m being more careful.

I’m guessing I’m revising my poetry too lightly because:

1. It’s too emotional and it doesn’t seem right to hit that with a heavy hand.
2. I fear I have no clue what I’m doing, and just because maybe I like a poem doesn’t mean it’s not clumsy or opaque or, biblically speaking, “Of private interpretation.” Which is to say, writing in tongues. See, that’s in my lexicon, and I know both its origin and its meaning TO ME, but not everyone would, and I don’t want to have to write notes on my poem and…and…

Okay, loveys, this is all a lot, so here’s the TL;DR:

We’re letting it flow, we’re adjusting to taste, we are reading other poets and essays about poetry, we are submitting to get feedback (even silence is feedback), and we are not letting ppl read it until we are more certain of what we’re doing, not out of embarrassment (though that too), but because we know voice is everything, and we do not want even a well-meaning person touching our voice until we know ours solidly. That we insist on.

Without voice, what’s the point?

It’s a beautiful day, go chase your voice or, if you have it already, use it!