Word Raccoon keeps pouring Coke Zero and iced tea into me, begging me to submit to just a few more journals tonight.
“We have submitted to nine already. Hells bells, what else do you want from me??”
She’s determined as she perches on the after-storm porch at home.
Herbert, that curmudgeon in my head that really ought to pay rent is asking why I always wait until the last minute to submit.
See, WR and I never think we’re waiting until the last minute. We start off the month hitting the easiest and ones that are the most “us,” and we decide some of them are not our vibe.
But the later in the month it gets, the more journal curious we get and soon we’re like, “Hey, you look kinda cute.”
Maybe we didn’t think we were ready to submit another chapbook just now. Maybe we really didn’t see the food-through-tech call for poems (how did we miss that one?) until now.
You want feminist poems? Here, hold this, I know we have some in here somewhere.
Strange, weird finds? Yup, probably at the bottom of the poetry trunk. (Imagine the maid going through the trunk in Titian’s Venus of Urbino; I had to hunt all over the Uffizi to find the painting, but it’s there. WR would’ve used a map.)
And WR and I know this makes us a cliché , but last minute gives us the impetus to submit now, now, now!
Speaking of Coke Zero (which we were above, so don’t accuse me of yet another breakneck topic shift), I walked by the cooler at the café today and ran back to it, sure I had seen a familiar red-and-black label.
“Is that for me?” I asked the barista.
I had been campaigning for them to stock Coke Zero for my Dirty Diet that has somehow become my default drink. (If you know me, you know the very last thing I need is coffee AND Coke Zero together.)
Yes, they ordered it for me, but I guess I will let others buy it, too. LOL. I actually wore my Coke Zero earrings in there like billboards and literally asked if they would stock it.
Now I need to have the other café carry it. I forgot to mention it to the owner.
The temperature started out chilly, so I, rational woman that I am, started out indoors at the café while I ate my berry banana bowl.
Just as it was warming up, I picked up my laptop to move outdoors and the most gorgeous bird flew by. I don’t think it was a bluejay, but I caught a glimpse of blue, so maybe?
I really ought to learn my birds better, I suppose.
Anyway, there are about five more markets WR would really like me to submit to before the evening is through. She hates seeing those countdowns.
I may or may not get through them. She has me snorting Coke…Zero, that is.
Oh, and guess what? JOHN GREEN HAS ANNOUNCED HIS NEWEST PROJECT – he has written a novel FOR ADULTS!!! Final-freakin’-ly!
He’s calling it Hollywood, Ending, and apparently it debuts on Sept. 22. While I’m way too excited for it, also, Sir, I just submitted a poem today based on your last book. Don’t make my work obsolete just yet, please. 😂
Also, shhh…but I might have just pre-ordered a signed copy AND, since he says that The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) by Warhol was important to this book, I ordered a crusty old paperback of it for $2, too, before everyone else rushes for them.
Wait, is that just a me-thing?
Ok, WR is insisting I get no supper or no snacks (usually her thing, but whatever) until I make more headway on the submission front.
The raccoon always gets her way.
dremadrudge.com 