It’s threatening to be warmer out today, but right now it’s very much not, and both of my pairs of slippers are on the porch.
There is no strategic reason they are there. They ended up there, but to bring them in means introducing cold air into the house before 5 am. No, Herbert, I have no idea why I am up before 5 am. I just am. But if I get the slippers and bring them in, they will eventually warm up, yes?
These are the things that flummox me and shouldn’t, but they are throat-clearing before the writing.
Shoes in, WR says I chose the wrong pair and why did I put them on and take them off off off until they warm.
Word Raccoon and I woke later than usual on Monday morning but still somehow ended up at the café an hour early. I was grabbing my keys when I heard the neighbor’s garage door go up and she leaves at 7:39. I don’t know why I know that.
Then WR whispered that while I’d remembered my jewelry, I had totally forgotten makeup, so I obliged her, but we still arrived early.
The café was just the right amount of chaos and company.
The internet was down, so at first I was puzzled as to what to do since my phone claims it can be used as a hotspot but is a total slow pain about it. A friend who was also working there offered to let me hop on his if I needed it, but I decided to make WR experience what life was like before internet.
It started with morning pages, something we haven’t done in so long, just to get us to wording.
Lighthearted, people coming in and out, nodding, making conversation with AirPods in so if you didn’t talk too much they wouldn’t be offended.
Meeting the writer daughter from NYC that you’ve heard about for years from a friend, commiserating about how long books on submission can take and agents and all things writing, admiring her Erewhon bag, regaling her with tales of Buc-ee’s, its opposite, though you’ve never been to one.
In between, finding a foothold in the day’s writing. We do not demand words do anything. But sometimes we long to see them bloom.
Speaking of blooms, the electric blue squill flowers are taking over the yard. It’s brave, the squill, coming out before the other flowers, like a scout, testing to see if it’s safe.
I will miss them when they are gone. I feel like I’m not supposed to say that, because what right do I have to say it; they’re not my flowers. They’re just wild flowers.
But it’s true. I freaking miss them when they’re gone. Even just seeing them in the wild is comforting. Silly WR.
This poetry collection idea is either clever or obvious. The first part was fun, so I don’t really care. The second part took place in a second location yesterday. Which explains a lot. (Yes, true crime lovers, that was a bad pun.)
Without further ado, here is the current TOC for this very rough chapbook I’m working on. (Many of these may get amended titles, obv.)
Optative Instructions
In the Subjunctive Mood
The Imperative Mood
The Indicative Mood
The Interrogative
The Declarative
The Passive Voice
The Future Perfect
The Future, Perfect
FRAGMENTS
The Vocative
The Optative
Present Continuous
Active Voice (Featuring Voiceless Fricatives)
The Negative
Ellipsis (Your Native Language)
The Conditional Wing
The Zero Conditional (Happens Every Time)
The First Conditional Future, Possible
The Second Conditional
Third Conditional (Imagined Past)
Mixed Conditional
At least it’s less “objectionable” than a poem I wrote over the weekend, “Necromancer Duties.”
“You ain’t raising nothing tonight./You birthing it.”
I know. The newest collection’s poem titles sound positively vanilla by comparison.
Here’s what the accidental framework is doing for me. It’s making me write more intentionally, slower, cooler, though come on, WR did sneak one F-bomb in.
Naturally, she wants to share it:
“Ah, fuck it./I hate the subjunctive.”
I looked at a few of the poems yesterday, said no thank you to revision, not yet, and that’s when I wrote the conditional poems.
Will the collection turn into something? Will they behave? Will I regain my revision powers that are sadly slacking on all fronts?
Stay tuned.
Also, not to pivot wildly, but look at this owl mug I got in yesterday to review. I am not reviewing it here. I am simply saying it is both adorable and enormous, and that Frida finger puppet has bravely agreed to serve as a scale model. Makes me look forward to tea time.
dremadrudge.com 