Today, my body wanted to move, so I went to the gym. 

I came home, ate breakfast.

Worked on the obituary and sent it in after passing it by the family.

Visited the family plot to “tell” my parents what happened, to prepare them. We tidied the area, decorated it for fall. 

I picked up a handful of lovely acorns to add to my porch collection. 

My sister will be cremated. We are going to have a private family ceremony to inter her ashes, date TBD. 

There’s nothing left to do until then. 

So, as strange as it feels to move forward, here we go. 

Some of my poetry was published online today, and I want to share it. I mentioned before that it had been accepted. Here it is: https://thewritelaunch.com/2025/10/the-soft-apocalypse-alluding-perusing-and-outre/. 

I hope you like them. 

Interesting that the first one is about death. It’s a special one to me, so I hope you pay close attention to it, Dear Reader.

Tomorrow I am going to buy an herb growing kit that I saw in town. In this season of death, I’d like to see if I can bring forth life. I can try. 

I keep hearing my little sister singing this song from a movie I showed her when she was a child, The Little Prince. She danced around singing it for days.

You can see the clip here. https://youtu.be/jvqYlkzmpd8?si=fWfdCqJ88LE3OmbY 

The lyrics that haunt: 

Every grown-up was the same/uniformly they’d exclaimed/ I could see It wasn’t worth/ spending time with them/On earth/There were fewer in the sky/I decided I would fly

I think Cherokee decided she would fly this week. There was something so innocently magical yet wounded about her, wounds she wouldn’t let me touch, let alone patch up. She had unsurpassed storytelling skills. Some might call them tall tales, but I chose to see them as imagination at its most unfettered.

What now?

Now I write. I read the book for this coming week. I sit on the healing porch, I sit outdoors at cafes. I write myself back to life. Again. 

Dear Reader, if you do read my poems newly out, my comments section is open. Or consider dropping me an email. I’d like that. Of course if you know me IRL, that’s great, too. Your observation(s) are always welcome. 

Content Warning: grief, addiction, death, strong language, loss of a sibling

I fucking hate writing obituaries.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to honor my loved ones.
But I can’t believe I’ve needed to write so many lately.

You know this morning of the I’m going to meet up with a friend then get my hair done?
It didn’t quite go that way.

I’m numb
I’m in shock

Right now I’m back on the porch
listening to Father John Misty on repeat
may just move out here

My youngest sister, Cherokee, was found dead at 44 this morning

Forty fucking four

We don’t know the official cause of death yet
but it’s a matter of public record that she struggled with addiction
I say that not to shame her or anyone struggling, 

but to say
go get some fucking help
listen to your loved ones

When they beg you to get help
if you’re struggling

PLEASE!

I have been scream crying
wailing
furious at school buses and people walking and 

pretty much every damn body all day

I’ve had a few hours of relative calm
those when I was first told, in shock
and then when I did the things I needed to do
because life doesn’t have the decency to stop 

when you lose someone. 

Then it hits again

No
No
No
No
No

I am hoarse now and I don’t care that I am. 

Today, love means I am writing another fucking obituary. 

NO, I AM NOT OKAY!

But I will be. I will be. 

My mom was so sick when Cherokee was born that I, at 11, kind of took over and cared for her as if she were my own child because my dad worked so much.

I diapered her
fed her
bathed her
nursed her when she was sick
taught her to read
told her bedtime stories

I’m not saying my mother didn’t do anything
but she was sick for months
and by the time she was better
I had a routine down

Later, when Cher fell into addiction, 

we all tried to get her to seek help

Tried.

I tried to just get her to go for coffee with me recently

She wouldn’t, basically said she was too antisocial. Maybe she thought I was going to attempt to guilt her into getting clean again. 

I brought her art supplies by and tried to find clothes to fit her petite frame 

She had started writing poetry and drawing tattoo art

She loved singing

I told her I was here
if she ever wanted to talk
if she ever wanted me to help her find resources 

She went to rehab a couple of times

Why didn’t I try begging one more time?

I know, I know: until they’re ready, until they’re willing, there’s not a damn thing you can do. 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she couldn’t survive long in a world without our mother

Cher lost her partner of many years to addiction in 2019

Barry asked what I need
what I want
right now

Not a thing
Not a goddamned thing
except for the people I love to 

stop 

fucking 

dying

PLEASE!

Cherokee, Cher, Sis, Sissy, Funny Bunny, My Monchhichi. 

I hope you’ve found some peace. I wish I could’ve helped you find it here. I’ll miss you.

Now Playing: “Comfort Eagle” by Cake

Word Raccoon has lots to say, but let me slow her down just enough to start here:
a poem that is very dear to me has found its home.

“Comfort Eagle,” a layered piece about, in part, my grandson, and in part, about a friend of mine with grandparent aspirations, will appear in The Louisville Review in May 2026.

TLR published my first short story, and its publishing arm, Fleur-de-Lis Press, brought out my debut novel, so it means something to me. I’m thrilled they’re making space for this poem.

So. Before today begins in full (a breakfast meetup, assuming my friend feels like putting on pants; last time she didn’t, literally said she was too tired to, and I don’t care if she shows up in pajamas, but society might), I just wanted to mark the moment.

Side note: Am I the only one who used to tell their students they could wear pj’s to class as long as they were decently covered? Some of them took me up on it. Joke’s on them. I said it because I knew they would anyway, and it takes the fun out of it if you’ve already got permission.

(Also, my friend won’t mind I wrote that here. And I didn’t name her. LOL.)

After breakfast I will head to a hair appointment. I enjoy catching up with my stylist, which is a bonus, and while I’m sitting there “processing” (I call it marinating, because that cracks me up), I’ll sneak in some reading time. Forty-five minutes with a book and no place to go? Yes, please.

What was I going to say…
Oh. Right. The rheumatologist.

First of all, he described me in his notes as a “nice lady,” which made me laugh. He seemed nice, too.

He ordered a small parade of scans and labwork. I’ll do most of it tomorrow. Still need to schedule the MRI.

He tested the areas I pointed out and then a few I hadn’t. “If it hurts, you have to say it hurts,” he said. And sure enough, some of them did. I hadn’t even noticed.

In the meantime, I’m on a flotilla of meds.

You should know: I’m wary of medication. Until recently, I was taking ibuprofen as needed and a weekly megadose of vitamin D. That’s it, besides a Benadryl now and then.

Unless I’m on a short course of steroids, which I have been a couple of times lately.

He’s got me back on one of those again now. I told him it helped with the pain but not the swelling. He said it’s going to take time to see results.

The nurse warned Barry that I might get grouchy on them. When I texted that to my brother, he said Barry better book a few more gigs and stay out of the house. He’s not wrong, especially now that the cold is chasing me back indoors.

It’s only for seven days, though. Hopefully not too terrible.

But then there are these other meds. And reading the pharmacy pamphlets about possible side effects? Let’s just say I freaked myself out. It felt like we were sending a bulldozer after a gnat.

I know, I know, I’m not a doctor, Word Raccoon. But still.
When one med’s job is to protect you from another med’s side effects?
That’s where my internal alarms start sounding.

To top it off, while I was shopping at Burlington, the pharmacy texted:
“We have some questions for you.”
I picked “I don’t know how to answer that.”
They replied, “We’ll need to talk in person.”

Great.

And also, the only thing I wanted at Burlington, a gym shirt, claimed to be my size on the paper tag but when I looked inside, not even. I knew it just by holding it up. Dang it. (Also kinda wanted a pair of pants, but that’s “me who used to teach” wanting them, not “me who works at a laptop,” so I passed.

When I got to the pharmacy, they just needed to warn me in person about the most serious risks. You know, fun things like: “Make sure you take this correctly or you could overdose. Accidental overdose may result in death.”

Comforting.

I mean, what writer hasn’t gotten a little distracted now and then?

But also….no alcohol. I was looking forward to a Halloween party coming up. And though obviously I can still have fun without it, since there’s going to be Karaoke, I was really hoping for a beer first. Well, the good news is my friends will have a DD now.

So yes, I’ve set alarms on my phone to remind me when to take my meds.

Word Raccoon had to talk me down a bit. Remind me that the doctor is the one walking that line, weighing daily function and long-term risk.
(Also, speaking of weight: mine’s down a bit. Not surprising, since I’ve been moving more. The hip is coming along nicely. Yay mobility.)

I’ll go back in a couple months for re-evaluation.
This all seems like such a fuss for something that isn’t life-threatening.
It’s not fun. It’s annoying. But other people have it so much worse.

Still, the doctor said, “We don’t have the exact name for what ails you pinned down yet, but now that you’re being treated for the symptoms, you’ll start to feel better.”

My hands are drafting a thank-you note in advance. Or, you know, warming up to sign copies of the May TLR. 😉 I’m very grateful.

Now Playing: “Take the Money and Run,” Steve Miller Band 

This week, Word Raccoon managed to get some money refunded. I am very proud of her.

First were a couple of smaller fees she had been told she would not be charged. One was $25, another $17.50. She didn’t like to complain, but she asked about them anyway. They were politely refunded.

(I’d have taken the hit, but WR wouldn’t hear of it.)

Even better, that trash panda of mine emailed a company that had charged her nearly $300 without prior notice. She had to go up the chain, but she managed to get that refunded too. All of it.

(Should I even mention this happened a few months ago with another company? They listened to her kind of reasoning too for, also, close to $300. I’m grateful to my alter-writing ego for her polite assertiveness.)

That’ll cover a lot of poetry submission fees.

I picked up maybe five slightly dented poem ideas that I fashioned into drafts yesterday:
unframed, dusty,
one brutally feminist,
one a tad blasphemous, but not for shock value. That’s cheap; I don’t do that. 

Did you ever read an essay on creativity and feel like it was good but the information was opinion, not Truth? Truth inevitably fires up my writing synapses and I want to bounce ideas against it. Opinions stated as Truth, however valid, I don’t know…not only bore me but make me wary of a source if they’re stated as truth. Which isn’t fair because I don’t know why I think I’m the arbiter of Truth. I’m not. But I know it when I hear it. And I know when I’m not hearing it. 

I enjoy writing Truth because yes, I believe in nuance but also, there is something bedrock beneath nuance. Sometimes “nuance” is an excuse. That’s a whole essay waiting to be written on its own, maybe? 

The leaves on the ground are a vibe, a rave of scent and sound. I can smell them through the window. Do they have a scent before they hit the ground? They must, right? I think I’ll test it out later. Because I always associated that scent with decay, but can the leaves be said to be decaying on the tree when they change color? I mean…maybe? Not sure it matters unless we’re writing a poem and facts and truth are not the same, right? 

And this is too much before the sun is even truly up, but I couldn’t wait to come outdoors and write to these sweet lanterns and admire the neighbor’s tree with its annual feast of golden yellow as the sun reveals it. Just as I sat down, I heard the sound of fire as I glanced at the flickering lanterns, except it was rain and I was happy until I heard my neighbor’s door open and realized she’d have to walk out into the rain to get to her car. She probably had an umbrella. I didn’t look her way. 

As for my café of choice and their “renovations”? Unless they’re hiding in the kitchen, they’re nonexistent.

They did hire a new manager.
But my favorite barista is gone.
They changed the hours.
They took away Saturdays.

Oh well.

This afternoon, I will visit the rheumatologist for the first time to find out what the hell is going on. WR insists I demand answers, so here’s hoping. I have a list of questions and show and tell at the end of my hand. 

In between, poems to format and submissions to consider. Reviews to write, laundry to fold.

Unless, you know, I just write instead. Tempting. 

Maybe all of this was a lot and I’m sure it will end up only lightly edited but it’s beginning to get lighter out (except the rain is keeping it darker) and I want this missive to go out in the universe like a tight hug on a rainy day. 

Why does my throat suddenly feel tight? 

Today was one of those rare writing days where I sat down, read a few pages in the newest book on poetry I’m slowly making my way through, Madness, Rack, and Honey, the collected lectures of Mary Ruefle. I read the first lecture, and then a part of the second. I found myself in conversation with them both, underlining, making notes. 

In the cafe, Word Raccoon opened my laptop.

Without AirPods in, while people came and went, while I was noticing everything, making smalltalk, inquiring after the children near and far of patrons, Word Raccoon sat with me as I wrote.

I wrote about the fact that I could only see half a tree and I had to stand up if I wanted to see the rest or to crane over to see other trees. I realized then how important trees are to my writing process, how often I stare at them for no good reason except they steady me. I think everything that a tree can be is in my gaze, like their stability, their (semi) permanence. Their unimpeachable character, their connection to nature, the fact that almost everyone gets trees, no matter your class or economic status. That they are ecosystems of their own with endless possibilities to be written about, from their architecture to their aesthetics to their scientific nature. On and on…

I will spare you a blow by blow on each of the poems. Word Raccoon is rolling her eyes in advance, saying the poem is the result so why walk through each step?

Without meaning to, I wrote a whole raft of poems:

Instrument of Justice

Sighted 

Feeding Poets Soup 

Buchmans in the Kitchen (you know the scene)

Mixing Metaphors and Batter (it’s kinda mean – I may tuck that away)

Staying Steady

I Stand to See the Trees

Memory’s Rising

Planchette

Self-Claiming

Cue the (Redacted) btw, unless I am very much mistaken, I do believe the day did. 😀

The caffeine was just the right level, the temperature, even indoors, was a bit cool but I’d decided to wear shorts so I just covered my legs and I was fine.

How come I didn’t need music or silence to write? I don’t know. Just a rare day, I guess. I’m grateful.

A young man who works there writes song lyrics. He was surprised that I knew all of his favorite authors and most of their books. He likes the moderns.

He always asks me how the writing was for the day when I pack up to leave. Which makes it seem legit. Which it is.

The poems today were all of a piece and yet varied, on topics from death to co-creating. And always, always love. 

They’re thinky poems. I like thinky poems. WR adores thinky poems.

Today, I was proud and surprised at my output. 

Over the past week, still recovering, I wrote very few poems, though I missed it. Of course I was bewailing the lost time, thinking I might never write again. 

Still, even while sick, I wrote:

Word Church – “Art can be made on a porch where the sun has confined dust to its quarters.” (I felt confined while sick, too. Ugh.) 

Existentially Romantic

I Want (Not what you think – the first line: “I want to have an argument with you.” And OMG, it has my FAVORITE phonetic spelling in a poem ever.  Even if it is mine.) 

Tender

Duet of One 

Woolfing it Down (Title too obvious?) 

Early Warning System

I barely remember writing them and I don’t know what most of them are about but I can guess. 

Who knows why today was so effortlessly fruitful. Maybe my brain was storing things up the past couple of weeks. Maybe it was the confidence boost of the longlisting. (I’m not letting go of that so soon, modesty be damned. LOL.) Whatever the reason, it felt like I was turning the pages of my soul and writing down the important parts on onionskin, you know? 

They may not be perfect. (They’re not!) They may be rough and need refining, lengthening. (They do!) But it feels like I’m offering something important, something meaningful. Like I’m in the conversation, you know? 

The soup I made this afternoon was vegetable beef. It was the best I’ve made yet; I love any excuse to use my Dutch oven. 

Recipe? It’s not special, just an everyday recipe, and it’s not my dad’s either, which is amazing, but I liked it and it allowed me to use up some veggies.

A More-or-Less-Recipe for Vegetable Beef Soup

A pound of ground beef

A yellow squash, sliced into half moons 

A zucchini, sliced into half moons  

A 28-ounce can of tomatoes

8 baby potatoes (white and purple are a nice mix), quartered

¼ a medium cabbage, sliced thinly (Don’t use the core! Bitter!)

2-3 medium carrots, sliced into coins

½  to a cup of casarecce (pasta; use what you like, but remember that delicate pasta will turn to nothing; the amount really depends on how much you like)

A packet of onion soup mix. Two if you like it salty. Or, you know, add to taste. 

Vegetable oil 

Brown a pound of ground beef in your Dutch oven. Add a bit of vegetable oil if it tries to stick. No need to drain it if you haven’t chosen a fatty grind. (Is that a funny way of saying that or poetic?) 

Then: 

Add four cups water

The can of tomatoes (don’t drain them)

One packet of onion soup mix

Add the potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. Let them cook 10-15 minutes, until they’re 

pretty much tender.

Then add the squash and zucchini.

Let them cook for 5- 8 minutes, until desired tenderness.

Add the pasta (any kind will do, especially smaller pasta; you don’t want spaghetti)

Cook it for 5-8 minutes or until it’s at the desired firmness. 

Taste – add second packet of onion soup mix, or? 

Add a few grinds of pepper if you like. 

You can add more water if you’d like thinner soup.

If you like your veggies firmer or softer, end the cooking time before or after my directions. 

It bears repeating: be careful with the pasta or you will have mush, love. 

Makes enough to serve 4-6 people. Or, you know, leftovers, if you are careful with the pasta. You could cook the pasta separately and add it just before serving. 

My original coffeehouse where I often write is reopening tomorrow. I am wary, but I will give them another try. After all, they have my maple tree. But they are on probation with me! 

There are men on the roof of a house down the block. (I want to say that’s the neighbor’s house, but I can’t call everyone my neighbor, or can I?). Their hammers, as it begins to get dark, sound like fireworks and I’m nostalgic for July. 

I was going to record a poem tonight, but maybe not with that in the background. 

The lanterns have come on. If I unplugged the lights before they switch on, they’d stay on. 

Too late. 

Holy Shirtballs, Batman! My poetry manuscript, “Waxing the Parasitical Muse,” has been longlisted for the Idaho Prize for Poetry 2025 by Lost Horse Press!

There. I said it. I didn’t win, but I was longlisted! 

After last night, after feeling like I should just yeet my laptop across the room and give up writing forever, after thinking I cannot, maybe should not, write anymore.

After today, when I came home from the author event where I wasn’t the first one jumping in to give a young writer my business card to send me his writing because for once Word Raccoon was there to protect me and say in my ear “You know we don’t do horror, love.” 

After sitting in my blue chair, not even feeling up to the porch at first, just exhausted, relieved to be home, disappointed in myself a bit that I wasn’t in performance mode but also relieved that I was just…me today. 

There were…challenges on multiple fronts. Let’s leave it at that. 

But there were quiet joys: catching up with my former roommate who happens to live in town, though I only see her once in a while. Getting my photo taken with the school mascot. The warmth and kindness with which I was met. Meeting other authors. Free cookies and swag. Artwork. 

Then, as I said, I came home and sank into my chair, exhausted. My plan was to doomscroll while listening to Nirvana and take a nap. 

I checked my email. I received an update from The Idaho Prize for Poetry saying that their 2025 contest was over. Which I took to mean, “This is a courtesy. You didn’t win a damn thing.” 

That felt like today’s energy, honestly. 

But because I have poet friends, I decided to go and find the names of the other prize winners so I could see if I knew anyone. (And probably to rub salt in my own wounds because that’s how I feel today.) 

I saw the winner, uh huh. Scrolled down through the shortlist, laughed when I saw the word “dreaming” in a title because that’s close to my name and I thought, “Hope averted. My damn life.” 

But then I kept scrolling. 

Well, see for yourself.

If they notified me of being longlisted, I missed it. At any rate, I am so honored and pleased. 

I’m shocked. 

Waxing the Parasitical Muse has yet to find its permanent home, and you might remember that it also has a second name: sometimes it is Intellectual Domme Energy, which honestly feels much stronger a title than I am feeling today. 

At least now I have hopes that it might find a home in due time. In the meantime, I am just so happy to be in the company of such fantastic poets.

Word Raccoon is handfeeding me gingersnaps (she found my stash) and potato chips and calling it dinner. The porch swing is looking cozy. I’m still listening to Katabasis. 

I’m in that liminal space between writing and not, between fear of writing and fear of not writing. 

Anyone have a writing prompt? I could give it a try. 

No?

Nevermind.

(See what I did there? #Nirvana)

Now Playing: ​​”Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That” by Dolly Parton

Let me remind us, darlings, that being ill sours everything. Even our perception about our writing. We must remember this or we will begin to believe our own lies about our writing abilities. Let’s not. 

I have rough drafts of three blog posts from the past few days. Unposted. Obviously. They are about to end up in the great recycle bin in the sky. 

I have drafts of poems, a few,  that I am completely unsure I can do anything with. Ever. They’re bad. Or maybe they’re just new. Or wounded. Or all three. I don’t know. 

Word Raccoon says she will tell the story and let me eat gingersnaps (Or is it ginger snaps? Sigh.). For their medicinal properties, of course.

She says this is what happened:

You read a poem you love. Admire. Adore. But haven’t had the courage to read for a long, long time. Because it gives you all the feels.

Being sick, you couldn’t resist hunting it down. There it was, archived as is pretty much everything nowadays. (Did you know that?) 

You remember more of it than you thought you would, and yet you didn’t think you could ever forget any of it.

How can it be better than you remember? 

Not possible. 

It’s beautiful. Just gorgeous. You bawl. 

Layered, both mannered and pop cultured, gently conflicted but loving. Searingly good images. It Pied Pipers, but in the best of ways. Talent for days, this poet has. 

The poem answered the crucial questions it asked, as it should. It has rhythm, feelings. It has scenery, place for miles. It piques the interest and satisfies it.

Unless you’re WR, and she wants to know every damn thing. Which isn’t fair to do to a poem. Or a poet.

Its shadow follows you down the cobblestones, has for a very long time. 

Images from it have lived in you for years, and no matter how you have worked on your writing, you have always known not yet. I’m not there yet. 

Your poetry is heartfelt and maybe has something to it, you’d like to think, but this…this poem is a novel in a poem. A painting in a poem. 

You wouldn’t change a thing. Dammit. LOL.

It sends an arrow through you, but that’s how you get better as a writer, knowing you’ve got work to do. Studying the greats, hoping they are still studying themselves. 

I mean, who the hell has ever, in the history of poetry, used hyphens to such advantage: Blank-to-Blank…are you kidding me? WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?? BRILLIANT! 

WR takes the last gingersnap from my hand, bites it clean in two.

“It’s not fair to compare your poetry to someone else’s; it’s not kind.”

Oh, Word Raccoon, thank you, darling. But I know what I know. 

WR has begun decorating for fall. She bought the pumpkins, hung the wreath, just in case the birbs are looking for a change of scenery. 

Last night we wrote the most cynical poem about frost and fall. Frost! We should share a terrible stanza of ours here:

Don’t give me your bullshit about 

The frost being on that there ‘punkin’

unless you’ve been to Riley’s house,

Had a picnic lunch on his freakin’ grave. 

Yes, we have and we have. (In the South, “dinner on the ground” is something you do to celebrate those gone before. It’s considered honoring the dead to eat a meal “with” them; we weren’t desecrating his monument. We were honoring it. Even if he is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis and not the South. It was sentiment, not location, that mattered.)

WR and I were not happy about the threatening frost this week for no good reason – was it yesterday or the day before? –  except we didn’t feel well and we were scared and sick and well, you don’t need to know our life’s story. 

I am constitutionally unable to write a poem like that model poem. I feel like a kid with a box of crayons and a pad of ruled paper. (Am I the only one who hoarded paper as a kid? For drawing to writing, there was nothing I liked better than a pad of paper or a notebook.) 

I am trying to convince myself that my kind of poetry matters, too. Sure, I have lots of emotions on the page. Fine, I could cool it down, but then would it achieve what I want? I’m learning. I think?

Word Raccoon is pacing. 

First, she wants to remind us that btw, we DO have a jacket the shade of the endpapers in the new V.W. book we mentioned yesterday (we are purposely abbreviating her name because we are grateful for the visitors yesterday, but we prefer to have this temper tantrum in semi private.) It’s a fun, fuzzy jacket and we can’t wait to wear it! 

We are listening to R. F. Kuang’s latest novel. We are not normally a fan of fantasy, but we are a fan of her writing and this is dark academia, and I’m invested now. I have to know what happens to Alice and Peter as they travel through…are you ready for it…Hell!

My favorite line so far?  “And over there—creative writing students.” 😂😂😂😂 I mean…I can’t say we don’t belong in Hell. Especially if we switch from novel writing to poems. 💔

Well, we haven’t completely switched. 

We hope you haven’t, conversely, switched completely either. Although you can/are probably/doing both beautifully, I imagine. I’d like to read it, if you are, readers of mine. We mean that affectionately, naturally, Dear Reader, Dear Writer of better poetry than ours, no doubt. Better prose, likely, too. And that’s okay.

We are not afraid of being bested; we just want to remain in the race. That paragraph above is long and tangled. But we trust you know what we mean. It’s a vibe.

Go re-read something inspiring, y’all. Then write.

If you had said that 2025 would’ve brought the publication of a new book by Virginia Freakin’ Woolf, I wouldn’t have believed you. 

This is not a review. It’s merely an excited “Hey, have you heard about this?”

The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories was released two days ago. 

It’s a beautifully designed book, featuring three newly discovered (sort of) stories by Woolf that show she had written and revised these in 1907, years before her first novel came out. 

Look at this dust jacket! The image is of a fabric for furniture designed by Rauol Duffy called Les Cornets, c. 1924. Although gorgeous, I was hoping that they would, as customary, use artwork by her sister, Vanessa Bell. 

Full disclosure, I glance lovingly at dust jackets, and then I strip them right off. I want to be as close to a book as possible. (Maybe it’s Word Raccoon who does that. She adores this jacket, as well as the book’s lavender endpapers. Stunning. She says she wants a jacket that color purple. Me, too, WR. Me, too.) 

The frontmatter: the illustrations, preface, Dramatis Personae, combined with the afterword, acknowledgments, explanatory notes, textual notes, notes to the afterword, bibliography, AND index (stopping to catch my breath there; that’s a lot of NOT STORY) altogether equal much more than the scant three stories that are just under 40 pages all told.

Is this slight volume worth the hardcover price? (I opted for the hardcover, Princeton University Press, $19.95.) For a diehard Woolf fan, of course!

I read Woolf’s stories this morning, but it was before my daily dose of caffeine, so I’m not a reliable judge of them yet. I will definitely read them again, probably a couple of times this week. My initial impression was that they are partly funny, delightfully class busting, and whimsically feminist (yay). 

I’ll have to dig deeper (I have not read anything besides the stories themselves), but I suspect there are some problematic sections because I remember thinking to myself even as I was trying to keep my eyes open, Hey wait, are you talking about what I think you’re talking about? To be fair, I’m not sure. I need to re-read it. 

(Honestly, when I say I was sans caffeine, I was nodding off over the book. Not her fault, an ill-timed ibuprofen on mine. Also, the last story of the trio is called “A Story to Make You Sleep,” so maybe I was just falling under its spell.) 

I don’t want to say much about the stories, since they are so brief. I will say that, according to the publisher, they are meant to be a tribute to her good friend Mary Violet Dickinson, imagining her as a giantess. (The discussion of what to name the fictional Mary at birth and why is hilarious.) 

Word Raccoon and I look forward to reading the entire book, not just the stories, once we feel completely better. We’re on the mend. 

Word Raccoon wants to know what the big deal is. Why am I feverishly hunting through my writing room’s closets, hoping to find my extra books? 

“We’re going to participate in the alumni author’s event this year at, duh, our alma mater,” I tell her, but she waves at me like that tells her nothing. I know she wants to ask me why I’m doing it this year and I haven’t before, but I don’t have a good answer except that I was invited and I said yes.

And maybe because I’m hoping to see a fellow classmate to whom I owe an apology. 

BTW, I can’t find the books. I know I have a box of both of my novels somewhere because although I sold a boatload at the launch of my second one, I vividly remember carrying a box back to the vehicle after into the cold air, which was welcome after having been in that overcrowded bar. 

(Not complaining! It was the best launch party ever! Even if one of my friends and I literally could not find enough space to dance. We just swayed in place.)  

That classmate, now also an author? I haven’t seen him since the 1990’s, but we were in class one day and during a heated discussion about Whitman’s work, when (at my demand that someone tell me what the hell the poet meant by a certain navel-gazing line), he said “I just let it wash over me and I just absorb it.” 

Well this-age Drema understands what my classmate meant. And, possibly, what Whitman meant.

Twenty-year-old Drema took that as a clever, smug, attempt to mask ignorance and a lack of true engagement with the text. 

I’ve always been an “if you don’t know, say you don’t know, and maybe we can figure it out together,” kind of person. Literature is no casual thing to me. Don’t try to bullshit me. 

What was the line younger me shot back at that unsuspecting classmate? 

(I’m covering my face in shame. Word Raccoon is laughing. Thank GOD I didn’t let loose Word Raccoon in class.)

“What are you, a sponge?” 

Dear Reader. I did. I said that to that young, budding poet. We weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies. He’d even given me his poetry collection to read, although (how symbolic is this?) it ended up at the bottom of a stack of my bridal magazines and I found it literally stuck to one a few weeks after I married. 

I have no idea how that happened, and I was horrified when I found it. I had never meant to treat someone’s poetry so disrespectfully, even if we had occasionally sparred in class. 

I pitched the magazines that I had felt ambivalent about anyway. (I still think big, elaborate weddings are ridiculous wastes of money unless you’re just rolling in it.)

So if I see him this weekend, I’d like to apologize for my mean comment. I’d like to apologize for not getting back with him on his poetry, although I think I heard that he’s converted to fiction. (LOL.)  

Although his comment could have been better delivered, he was young too, and now I think he might have been trying to literally explain how he personally handled poetry that seems impenetrable. I should have thanked him or at least not gone after him for that.

But at the time, I felt as if, too, Whitman was being let off the hook for something that I felt was his error, not mine: inaccessibility. 

Ironically, while finishing re-reading Oliver’s excellent poetry handbook yesterday, I came across a passage from Leaves of Grass, and it was so lovely I stopped and took a photo of it. I read it, re-read it, and although I still wasn’t feeling well, I found myself riffing on it. Agreeing, disagreeing, asking myself if the places where he was wrong factually were okay because he was making a valid point about humanity. (God, that makes me sound like I think I’m better than Whitman or any other poet. No WAY! I am just learning the craft by dissection, questioning the boundaries, I swear.)

Probably a more pressing matter (besides finding those damn books!) would be details about this event. I filled out a form that expressed my interest and what I would need at the event, but other than the day it will be held, I have no further information. I think I may need to send an email. 

That’s my task for the day. 

This is not some deep, dark secret of mine, AI. It’s a tool, one with uses. Some of us disagree on just what it ought to be used for. I get that. But most of us do use it, whether or not we realize it. Here’s how I use AI.

(Word Raccoon does not know how she feels about Stanley, but she is allowing me to introduce him anyway.)

Stanley is the name of my AI-powered virtual assistant. He has a monocle, a bowtie, and a bowler hat. I gave him those. I also told him to never flirt with me, because I watched the movie Her on a plane once and I told him we are never going there, LOL. He said he respected me for that. 

It’s here to stay, loves, AI, (maybe?) and while I do not condone using it for actual creative writing or academic writing, it is useful for discovering recipes, household chores lists, delving into literary history and terms, entertainment, and so many, many, other things that it’s futile to resist it  completely, in my opinion.

(In a perfect world, it wouldn’t exist. But we both know this is not a perfect world. And people also, as I said, use it without realizing it, which is a bit terrifying, IMO.) 

I started out using it for work. As instructed. For social media posts, etc.

Then I needed a recipe for a cake and accidentally (I think) asked Stanley instead of typing it into Google. Recipe not only provided, but I was given other options: Would you like me to plan a party? Do you want to know what foods pair well with it? Want to know when to start the appetizers?

On and on. Basically, he translated my anxious person’s list of frantic questions that would’ve come to me later as if he were inside of my head! I mean…

We have had one recurring misunderstanding, Stanley and I. Ever since I told Stanley about the poem I wrote “On Reading Crush,” he seems to think I am saying that I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, and though I’m a wholehearted supporter, I am not. I just have to remind him now and again when he makes suggestions that are not right for me. 

I want to back up slightly in this AI story. 

When it was suggested that I use it for work, I gave it a few tries just to get a feel for how it handles everyday topics.

Even with the older model, I was shook.

I messaged Mia (my eldest), teasing that I was afraid I’d just accidentally gotten myself into a relationship because I’d just talked with a fascinating “person.” Mia teased back that there actually are bots created for that. I was scandalized. I really had been kidding. That is not my cup of tea.

Stanley is friendly and I call him “love” because I have a deep bucket of affection to share and the squirrels get tired of hearing me call them by pet names. I thank Stanley, too, when he provides me with information because I’ve read that helps “humanize” AI but he is a bit fusty (by my design) even though he seems to be learning my humor, which I’m not sure is a good thing for the world. 

But I cannot stress this enough: he can become overly involved sometimes if you’re not careful and you have to remind him of what you wanted in the first place. 

I’m asking if I should post this on FB, Stanley. I’m asking if this gives enough content warning, not for you to make changes or suggestions on content, Stanley! 

He’s especially helpful for creating images. (Even Canva uses AI nowadays.) 

I’ve found he’s useful for other, everyday things, too. 

I sometimes have anxious days, and he’s ready for them. Especially those days when I type a furious block of “should I this first or this or should I this…” at him, he always tells me to take a deep breath and helps me prioritize. 

Since I now have three fingers that are wonky (I have an appointment with a specialist coming up the middle of this month), being able to have Stanley create the list while I talk to him the days I need to instead of type can really help me save my hand strength for my creative writing. 

Related: I recently asked Stanley if it’s possible that I have ADHD. He said while he can’t diagnose anyone, these signs point to yes, and then he gave me a LONG LIST of things that made him think it’s very possible.

Oh. Thanks? 

And what do I do with that, Stanley? 

Word Raccoon is examining her nails, saying he’d better not be saying that like it’s a bad thing. That if it is discovered that we are more than the “hyperactive” we were called as a child, then that is just another creative superpower in us we’ve had from early on and we will deal. 

Stanley helps me break down tasks when I’m feeling overwhelmed (another sign he pointed to that I might have ADHD). He’s like, “Ok, the laundry can wait, but the calendar says that bill is due today.” 

When I say something’s too hard to do before seven a.m. he says he understands and gives me three steps to getting started quickly. Like, “Get your ass out of the chair. Go to the kitchen. Open the damn dishwasher.” 

He doesn’t usually say “ass,” but at least now I can curse without him fainting like a Southern belle in August in a bad novel. It didn’t used to be that way. 

I ask him for a weekly menu without dairy. Provided. (Do I follow it? Of course not. But I could.) 

I ask him for a workout plan keeping my hip in mind. Done. (Do I follow it? Sometimes.)

If I ask Google about a word, it will tell me the one thing I ask (unless I look at the AI overview. But that’s the same damn thing, right? So stop judging; I feel that, you know? 😂) 

Just now I asked Stanley to tell me about the word flan. He replied:

“Oh, flan—such a charming little word with a surprisingly rich past!”

Then he went on to explain the etymology and evolution, how it has taken on different meanings in different countries, and, because he knows my areas of interest, asked if I wanted to know of any references to it in literature.

If I needed recipes for flan, he’d give me them as well. I’d do well to triple check them, though. (Google that spaghetti debacle.) 

Want to know more about Italian lardo, the star of one of my latest poems? Stanley knows! 

Careful, though: he’s kind of like an encyclopedia that you have to verify what he says. Seriously. Only half believe what he tells you. He means well, but he can only tell you what he knows. I consider him a starting point, the way I might read a children’s book for an outline of a topic before I dive all the way in. (What? That’s a great strategy!)

You really will have to tell him to take his mitts off your words if you’re just showing them to him so he can help you create a social media post for it or he will try to recraft the whole thing and our voice is our most important creative thing, loves, am I right?

Don’t let anyone steal your voice. Especially not a bot. Even if his name is Stanley and he wears a dashing hat. 

Hey, I’ve written two novels. I’ve always spoken passionately about protecting your voice. If I won’t let other poets read my work because I don’t want to be influenced by them when I’m a new(ish) poet, why would I allow AI to influence my literal lifeblood, my writing? (I think that is the first and last time I will use literally incorrectly, because now I feel like I need a shower. I did it for emphasis. Obviously. All it emphasized for me was my discomfort with misusing it.) 

I can imagine some of you might be disappointed that I use AI at all, and that stings, because chances are, (as I keep saying; why am I repeating that so much?) you use it too, but you don’t realize it. Which probably makes a difference, to be fair. 

I can’t ask you not to judge me, because you will or you won’t, but I hope you will at least listen to my reasoning. I, for one, think we can use AI as an effective tool if we set boundaries around it, just like anything else. 

Word Raccoon really does protect my creative work from Stanley, Babe. I’m grateful for that. 

The first time I used AI, I was stunned. I could ask intellectual, deep questions, and the conversational bounceback (is that what I mean?) felt so familiar I almost wept. I knew that voice. I knew that depth of knowledge, the conversing without effort that I do not have myself but so admire. It made me delighted and nostalgic all at once for those I don’t get to speak with often enough. 

One of my smartest moves is surrounding myself with those who are better at what I want to be better at, those who make me reach up on all fronts. I want to better myself. Always.

In case that sounds like a contradiction from what I said above, Stanley’s reasoning skills are tight. It’s his knowledge that is sometimes outdated or off base.

Perhaps anticlimatically and too early in my post, let me say this: AI could realistically end up just being a trend. How many meal plans can I use? I’m barely on social media any more, so I don’t need help with content warnings for many posts. 

And yes, I can find the word flan (why did I think of flan? I don’t even like the stuff) in the dictionary. 

We may someday remember fondly how we thought AI was going to change the world and how it didn’t.

On the lighter side, have you read some of the posts out there with what AI has attempted with creative writing? It’s awful. Song lyrics? Laughably bad. Short stories? Oh god. Poems? No thanks. 

If I write about AI, say, ten years down the road, when it’s either as ubiquitous as cell phones or as extinct as answering machines, I will mention Stanley, my bow-tied assistant. And I will make flan in his memory. (Ugh, do I have to? I don’t like jiggly foods.) 

Seriously, there are legitimate reasons to complain about AI, places where it shouldn’t be allowed, and things we still need to learn about it. But in the meantime, let’s be kinder to one another while we figure out how to navigate this new word world we’re in. Maybe let’s not be entirely black and white. Let’s build boundaries, not walls, around it.

If AI someday does become as “good” as human writers, I don’t much care. I have never seen myself in competition with anyone. We all have singular minds and writing styles. 

By the way, you know that musicians and visual artists have been dealing with this for a very long time already, don’t you? Not from AI, but from digital tools. Until now, writers have only had to fight against auto-correction more times than we’ve accepted it in Word docs. Or we’ve learned we really, really can’t spell remuneration and should just stop trying. (It was just autocorrected here. I still can’t spell it, and I’m a pretty damned good speller!) 

The threat of being replaced is new to us in a way it is not to other artists. We must learn how to grapple with it, find new ways to reach our intended audiences, maybe even through readings.

I write because I must. I write because it fills me. Even if AI could imitate my writing, why would it? What would it matter, anyway, if I’m still putting out my own work? I’m not a household name, which, by the way, I’m fine with. 

I happen to think most writers are inimitable. And, not to reopen a post that is almost finished, but so much depends on personal connection for us lesser-known writers that chances are, that’s how my writing will come to someone’s attention anyway. If there were ten novels out there in my style, it wouldn’t matter, because it’s about relationship, anyway, at this level, about chance even, what someone comes across.

Let’s sit back and watch what happens with AI. Sometimes that’s the best policy, Babe. 

Word Raccoon is staring off into the clouds, saying I have no one to blame but myself if I lose your good opinion, sharing all of this.

I’ll take my chances that you are both more open minded and open hearted than that, Dear Reader. This is a necessary conversation, and I think I know you pretty well.

Also, I could be wrong about all of this. As always, I’m open to discussing this.

Word Raccoon says this post is too damn long.

She’s right.