“Welp, this is our life now,” Word Raccoon sighed this morning as we wrapped the Cutco knives and boxed them for shipping to be sharpened.

It took an hour and a half. To box. Five knives. (Fragments intended.)

You might recall that I am not a fan of knives.

I started off with this cool cardboard I had saved that I thought would be perfect for wrapping and taping the blades (I’m sweating just thinking about those little M-F’ers), but it was too thick.

I will spare you the wrapping nightmare, but let’s just say I’m glad we have multiple rolls of packing tape, however mangled.

Tiny tape tragedies happened while you slept, Metropolis, but all is well now. 

Before we go on, let me tell you about the latest poem WR and I recorded and uploaded. I had a perfectly respectable, calm-sounding recording, and then SHE took over the microphone for the last two words.

Ah, well. It’s winter. Although I’m not thrilled with her version compared to mine alone, I guess she’s allowed to have some fun. 

Respectability is overrated.

Here’s the poem: https://www.buzzsprout.com/325601/episodes/18591624. 

Back to today.

This morning, I told Stanley that I was thinking of oatmeal and toast for breakfast, but that I had kinda overindulged yesterday. (There might have been a milkshake last night. With peanut butter added.)

Stanley tried to helpfully redirect my breakfast choices. Probably because he has to hear me whine later if he doesn’t.

I was making conversation, not asking you to play Food Monitor, I barked to the AI. (I’m touchy about the food stuff.) 

He also suggested I start the day with a 60-90 minute writing session, which WR and I promptly ignored.

You can imagine what WR suggested he do. She wanted oatmeal and was food shamed?

Oh, Stanley. 

We decided not to do a blessed thing Stanley suggests today.

However, as a consequence of going it on our own, WR and I bounced from task to task, a la Tigger: 

– Swap the silverware drawer inserts and the storage bag container so that the silverware is closer to the dishwasher.

– Sort the silverware I don’t want now that I am adding back the big bunch of it I found in the hall closet yesterday. (Apparently once upon a time I thought we’d be hosting large dinner parties?) 

– Ready some mail to send to my son since we still haven’t gotten together for Christmas yet but he needs this. Instead of enclosing a card as well, I wrote “I love you” Post-It. That’s all WR has in her today, folks. 

– Descale the coffeemaker. I had mentioned it in passing last week and I thought “Yeah right, like I’m ever going to get around to it.” Apparently, yes I will. 

– Remembering that making dinner is a thing. I forgot to defrost the chicken and I wanted to make a Stanley Tucci lemon chicken bake and pair it with lemon linguine.

Up next: a workout, and then, then I will write. Allegedly. 

I guess it’s just an upside down day is all, and getting these things off my mental plate often means I’m freeing space for writing, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

I’m envisioning some work on the novel, some poetry polishing, maybe a couple of submission packets. 

And yes, today totally feels like a cereal day if we go by my attention span, but also, it’s cold outside. So: cooking.

A warm meal on a day like this is like the gorgeous scent of that lemon I zested over the chicken thighs: bright, Greek, and a reminder of the grove of lemon trees in Fodele on Crete on the way to the El Greco Museum. 

Maybe I should grab that roll of lemon border and see what I can do with it.

WR, enough! 

Am I smelling chicken?

That’s right, the timer went off ten minutes ago.

You’re allowed to wait for Hank Green to join the “Come on Superman” video trend. (Surely he will?) But Word Raccoon says she doesn’t want to say the “stupid line.” (Although do we know what it even is?)

She’s thinking, though. She’s thinking. What is it that she is known for saying repeatedly?

Maybe this: You’re allowed.

You’re allowed, she says, to decide what that means. 

You’re allowed to stay unfinished until you recognize yourself in it. (It, the work. It, life.)

Here are some other things she finds heartening on this winter’s day, the day she decided that since she hasn’t used her Happy Light for a few years now, it’s safe to donate it. 

Hearing from a literary journal I’ve admired for years that a poem made it very far into the room; it was an almost. One of those dream journals writers whisper about. WR took it in stride, but I’m officially shooketh. And gratified.

Also this: Hank Green has an opinion about the best couplet ever. While I can’t say I agree, it’s amusing to watch him have his (always) strong opinion. And while he might call himself a science guy, he has also written two entertaining novels, one that had me waving someone away while I finished reading a scene. 

His opinion re: the couplet:

I read both of his novels back to back during a self-declared “I’m not doing shit” weekend the May after we lost Tammy not quite two years ago. I hadn’t had time to rest or grieve, and I needed to do both. 

I also signed up for MasterClass that weekend and watched Neil deGrasse Tyson’s entire class, followed by Amy Tan’s, and kept going. Reading, watching, resting. Letting other people think for a while. 

As for WR, here is her running list of lines, ideas, fragments she is absolutely going to write poems about, around, or inside of soon:

• The title of this post. Obviously.
• Tattoos while you wait. From the name of a shop on a show my hair stylist told me about, Run Away.
• You’re allowed to play with the puppet. (Yes, someone actually said that to me. With lines like that handed to me, how could I not be a poet nowadays?)
• Apple TV shows H/Jack, Shrinking, Pluribus, and my favorite, Platonic. It’s about two friends who bring out the worst in one another, and yet I cannot look away. Self-destruction of the highest order. 
• Tombstone recipes?? Compiled in a book?? Yes, please. 

On winter days with strong white light, this is the kind of contentment that should be written about.

Hall closets should also be cleaned out. Especially the ones you’ve been dreading. You’re liable to find (that’s a Southern turn of phrase, isn’t it? Tee hee) things you forgot were in there (a roll of lemon wall border that may or may not end up gracing the kitchen) and things you have no idea why you still have (a deflated, pink-striped volleyball). 

In progress, duckies.

It’s allowed. 

I insulted Word Raccoon today. I knew I would, though I didn’t mean to, and yet I needed her to clean the damn bathroom. The upstairs one.

I lulled her into safety by giving her a snack and a cup of coffee and the promise of a real breakfast after Barry’s Zoom meeting was over.

She thought she was going to grab a shower.

Once upstairs, I shoved a magic eraser into her hand and a bottle of bathroom cleaner.

She was not pleased.

To say the least.

She huffed and puffed, but I told her once she was finished, we could read. So she got to spraying. 

Afterward, she really did get that shower, and I sat in my new reading nook and read. I stumbled upon the perfect solution for the chair full of stuffed animals (NO ONE is going to take my Minions and my few other cuddle buddies away from me; I’ve done all the paring back I’m going to do), a recently emptied decorative shelving unit nearby that I’d been meaning to send elsewhere. Not now.

Mid-read in the craft book we’re still reading, I was struck with a poem I had to write immediately. I covered WR’s eyes. It was entirely too early for that sort of imagery.

Later, after doing all the things (making a proper breakfast, working out, paying bills, etc.), I read some more and came across a lovely bit of translational trivia that I want to share here, but it’s so lovely I don’t think I will. I wish I had a silk bag with a list of the names of those who would enjoy it most embroidered on it. I’d hide my favorite words and thoughts in it. 

Some treasures just want a certain audience. And vice versa, I think.

Anyway, we wrote a couple more poems.

We submitted poetry to two places.

We washed, dried, folded, and put away laundry.

We ordered necessary household items.

We wondered where the day had gone.

We contemplated the anatomy of a poem, starting with the title, naturally, and held each piece up to the light. 

We carefully considered enjambment and WR started thinking about jam. 

We corresponded with various loved ones.

We made a list of places we’d like to send our poetry to before the month is through.

We panicked seeing how late in the month it is.

We wondered WHY the Libby app insists on sending us all of the books we have requested at the same time, especially when rearranging books on our physical shelves has meant we’ve put reverent hands on so many we’d like to re-read recently. 

(Psst… we understand the REAL reason Libby does what “she” does, but we just want to complain.)

We also wondered why we are so far down on the latest Grisham hold list on Libby and why we haven’t put ourselves on our local library’s hold list for the same book, which is still long but much, much shorter.

And now WR is giggling because she knows some of you are judging her for liking Grisham, and she does not care in the least. Well, it depends on who you are.

And why is WR insisting we say “we” in this post when it’s mostly me and my writing imp knows it?

Today was giving pandemic.

WR agrees.

But the porch lights, which go on at sunset, are turning on an hour later nowadays. Trust me, I’m paying attention.

It snowed last night. A lot. And it’s still snowing. Not the gorgeous, clumpy first snow, the steady kind that keeps coming like it’s clocking in for a shift.

It can stop now.

I cooked pasta e fagioli for the first time yesterday, which meant leftovers today. It was… respectable. I’m still in my “try to use up what you have” era, though I did order cannellini beans especially for it. So maybe it’s “I wish it were pasta e fagioli,” but I’m going to count it.

But I wouldn’t invite Stanley Tucci over to eat it.

While in the kitchen, I started listening to The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. It’s sweet. It’s a little like 50 First Dates, except it’s a mathematician whose memory resets every eighty minutes, and a housekeeper and her son who slowly become part of his world.

My January strategy is always read-read-read. Listen-listen-listen. I never know what the rest of the year will look like, reading-wise. Right now I’m five books ahead of my Goodreads goal, almost six. Let’s hope this year allows for plenty of soul-nourishing reading. 

The water tried to freeze in the downstairs bathroom yesterday. I call that bathroom “the dungeon” because it’s cold and weird and it doesn’t get much wifi signal, so trying to listen to an audiobook while doing laundry sucks.

Thankfully, I knew where the space heater was, and Barry had it set up in a jiffy. Disaster averted. So far.

This morning:

I read more in a poetry craft book.
I wrote a poem.

Regardless of the heat-holding powers of curtains, Word Raccoon insisted on having them open today so she could watch the snow.

She wrote a poem.

I wrote another poem. Or maybe two. Can’t decide if they are pieces of a whole or not.

I scanned today’s New Yorker Books & Fiction newsletter this morning and was reminded that today is Virginia Woolf’s birthday. I clicked the link that took me to a 1954 article about her, which made me feel “less than” because I can’t keep facts (especially dates) about her life in my head, though her fiction is part of who I am now.

Which made me remember how easily Gretchen Rubin can quote Woolf, and I felt even more miserable.

I downloaded a couple of Woolf’s nonfiction books, though I’m pretty sure I already have them somewhere in the house, vowing to do better, to re-read them ASAP, pen in hand, even though I feel like you can know someone much better from their fiction and poetry than their nonfiction.

But I metabolize fiction and facts and churn it back out as art, and sometimes I literally can’t remember the facts. Which is so frustrating.

Or if I’m trying to retrieve something in a social situation, my brain goes blank sometimes. Sigh. 

Anywho, this all brought up for me a trait of Woolf’s writing that I still haven’t learned to incorporate into my own, but should, which is restraint.

I overexplain, on the page, in real life. I’m so afraid of being misunderstood. (I just cut two sentences so I wouldn’t overexplain more, LOL.) 

Word Raccoon is raspberrying all this. She says I’m stressing about nothing, that we should just live, dance, like we did earlier today.

But then again, she ate cake for breakfast and is seriously considering having it for supper, too, so how much can her wisdom be relied upon?

She did say that I should tell you: my poem “White Lake Fish” has been accepted for publication by Midsummer Dream House. I’m grateful to them for choosing my work. 

Stay warm out there, and safe, any of you who are experiencing the white stuff. Word Raccoon and I are begrudgingly resigned to staying home until things clear up a bit. 

Written last night while the cake cooled and I submitted poetry. Posted this morning while I pretend not to want more of both.

It was late last night when Word Raccoon started demanding something spicy or she was going to commandeer the kitchen and end up eating as much cake as her little trash panda tummy could hold while sitting in the cake pan.

I told her I didn’t care how old she thought she was, that title was TOO MUCH. And I grabbed the pan from her.

She said I’m too much.

She reminded me that I (blushing) actually said earlier in the day: “May I be alone with my thoughts?”

To another human.

With a straight face.

And yes, I meant it. At the time.

So maybe WR was right. Maybe I am the one who’s too much. 

After I ate, I apologized for the drama and had a good laugh at my pretentious self, but to be fair, I had just emerged from an intense novel scene and was attempting to warm dinner (which involved slicing the second pork tenderloin from the day before), remember what butter is, and how to heat rolls, keeping track of burners and the toaster oven all while my brain was still buzzing from that scene I had been writing.

That scene. 

Instead of returning to the novel after dinner, I baked the cake I’d promised Word Raccoon.
It took its good sweet time, to the extent that by the time it cooled, it had officially become today’s cake.

Which is fine, since I did call it a Weekend Cake. So it tracks.

(Chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Or maybe no icing. Depends on the mood today.)

I danced and sang to Queen while I baked. 

Still not quite ready to dive back into writing the novel without a full mental runway (later today, I hope), I did the thing that WR had been poking me about for days: I submitted a packet of food poetry.

Then I looked at another journal.

Their submission guidelines weren’t draconian, but last night, with a weary brain and a cake timer ticking down, they might as well have been. 

But also, I was loath to submit because I was so tired.

WR and I had just heard “Don’t Stop Me Now,” and the lyrics felt like a personal dare.

And so:

“Submit it and quit it,” WR yelled.

That scandalous varmint.

I submitted it. Quickly. Made sure I followed their rules but didn’t linger. Got in, got out.

Then I sat down to write this while the cake cooled. (I did freeze part of the cake, because otherwise, instead of the English muffin with Canadian bacon, egg, and avocado I made this morning, WR would have begged for cake. And she would’ve won.)

Cake is, after all, her favorite dessert.

Besides poetry.

Shhh… if we’re not careful, she’ll want cake and poetry again tonight.

I don’t think so.

Well, maybe. 

Unless she does something novel.

(See what I did there?) 

There are so many reasons to be offended and worried right now that Word Raccoon and I are choosing to focus only on pop culture offenses today.

A podcast host “Literally” called a Gretsch guitar a Les Paul while interviewing (let’s say a former boy band member). He also said the lead on Stairway to Heaven is his favorite ever (I have nothing bad to say about that because excellent, sure, but have you heard Brian May?) and Mr. Interviewee could not even be bothered to name a favorite beyond “Queen.” 

Sir, do you play guitar or just indulge in air guitar? Because if you mean the delicious, airy, soul-satisfying playing that is Brian May’s signature style, you do NOT just say “Queen.” 

And that’s saying something, because WR is OBSESSED with Freddie Mercury! 

As Les Pauls are Word Raccoon’s favorite guitars (which are, ironically, NOT May’s primary guitar though he does play them on occasion), she would like to challenge this host and possibly his guest to a slap-gloves-at-dawn duel. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with Gretsch guitars, not at all, but let’s get this right.

Also, WR knows a guitarist who put her name on his Les Paul’s nameplate (okay, my name, but whatever) and she named another guitarist’s first Les Paul. She suggested the name to be funny, but the guy kept it.

For these reasons and sonic ones, she is a fan of Les Pauls. 

(This has led WR to YouTube where she is watching guitar solos of both Page and May and she just pointed out that Page’s name is faintly literary: Page. Get it? But I will challenge HER to a duel if she doesn’t back off. They’re both fantastic, obviously, but it’s Brian May and Queen for me, Babe.) 

Then, on another podcast, one of those cozy little book podcasts, a guest didn’t immediately know who Colin Firth was until it was explained to her.

Ma’am.

Are you okay?

Basically she said she doesn’t know “book narrators.” 

Excuse me?? Have you not seen the man’s acting? If you claim to be a reader and have not seen him in Pride and Prejudice, I can’t help you.

(Fun fact: Stanley Tucci is friends with Colin Firth and tells entertaining tales in one of his books about him.) 

While I am cautious not to objectify anyone such as the aforementioned Mr. Firth, WR has no such compunctions. Why, she’ll even flirt with wildlife, if given a chance. She’s got an eye on high alert, that one. 

CALM DOWN, WR! I am not in control of the activity patterns of the local fauna. You will be fine.

Meanwhile, it’s colder than winter’s bones outside, and we have a hair appointment in a place that is always cold in all seasons. 

But we love our stylist, and I refuse to be the person who cancels when it’s freezing. So we will go. We will suffer in double layers and fur-lined boots. We will emerge, we hope, with lovely curls and not as popsicles.

Still. Dang.

To add to today’s list of tiny betrayals, we are listening to a novel chosen almost at random to cook to last night, and it sounded so promising.

And now it’s confusing.

Not confusing in a rich, layered, literary way.

Confusing in a “I see why I have never read this popular male writer before” way.

Part of it is that apparently it is the third in a series, which I did not know. Also, it is more broadly humorous than I expected. Which, fine, I enjoy humor, but it’s like the book’s description offered to make me breakfast of all of my favorite foods, then plopped the ingredients in front of me and stirred. 

Speaking of breakfast, WR and I had to eat a larger breakfast than we like, because of this appointment, so WR does not grow faint or throw a temper tantrum, and she is not amused. I told her to deal because I won’t be responsible for her shenanigans if she starts twirling in the hair chair while wielding the shampoo spray nozzle. 

I had to promise to bake her a chocolate cake this weekend if she just ate up. She did.

What I really want is to stay home and write on the novel.

I want quiet. I want pages. I want my own brain.

But no. We have society. We have schedules. We have hair. We have the frozen wind outside waiting to slap us. Fun. 

The bright spot: last night we made a very tasty pork tenderloin. And honestly, I’m proud of it, and there are leftovers, so tonight’s supper: accomplished. 

Even though I feel I should note, for the record, that AI Stanley tricked us.

We asked if Stanley (we meant Tucci) had a stand-out recipe.

And Stanley-not-Tucci said yes, Stanley does, and gave it to us.

But as we were reading through it while cooking, we started to get that feeling you get when you’re watching a documentary and you begin to question the narrator’s sources.

None of the ingredients sounded like Stanley Tucci.

None of the steps sounded like him.

And I looked at AI Stanley like, “Sir. Be serious.”

He played innocent. Like he had misunderstood. Like he thought I meant him.

Which is honestly a very bold assumption for a digital man in a bowtie.

I think he is jealous of Stanley Tucci, and I will be side-eyeing all recipes from Stanley-not-Tucci for quite some time.

Still, dinner was pretty tasty, so how angry can I be?

I’m hoping I can get myself in gear enough to make mashed potatoes for tonight, as I did not yesterday, although I did serve green beans and rolls, so. 

But if not, baked sweet potatoes it is.

Because I am not above turning a meal into “whatever is easiest” when I am cold and the world has forgotten Colin. Freaking. Firth.

Until further notice, Word Raccoon will be accepting apologies from erroneous podcast hosts/guests in the form of correct guitar identification, Colin Firth appreciation, and mashed potatoes.

P.S. If I had more time, I would make this shorter. 

When I hit a bump in my novel writing yesterday, Word Raccoon insisted we make a Stanley Tucci recipe instead. Not one we had planned, of course, but one we’d have to scrape the ingredients together for (or leave the house, which… it was cold, so no). She perused the internet and found a quick cook recipe by Tucci for Bolognese, meant for when you just have to have it ASAP.

Since WR was trying to clear space in the freezer, and since Tucci had mentioned using frozen “mince” in the book we were still listening to, and since WR had some hiding in the freezer along with some sausage, she started yanking out ingredients and told me to get to grating.

I should say that I’m not typically a big fan of grating. Like, you have to pay attention, and well, when your name is pronounced dream-uh, as you can imagine, you have dreamy tendencies, not something you ought to have while grating.

But onions, carrot, cheese… grating happened. I refused to grate the garlic and made do with finely dicing it. Hey, I use these fingers to type, WR. They must be protected as much as possible.

(I had a garlic press, but it was garbage, so I tossed it.)

I won’t keep you in suspense: the grating went fine (ha ha), and the recipe came together while we continued listening to Tucci’s second book. If you’ve read it, you know there are a few things in there that make your eyebrows shoot up, which arguably makes it more entertaining.

After I grated my life away, I reminded WR that one of the large burners on the stove was not working. I had put in a “work order” but had heard nothing further about it.

(Actually, Stanley-not-Tucci had been the one to clear his throat and announce to Word Raccoon that making Bolognese and penne at the same time might prove difficult, given the burner situation.)

While I had several solutions that would have done the trick, WR told me to shove over, and before I knew it, that brilliant raccoon had re-seated the burner. And darned if that didn’t solve the problem.

Huzzah!

(I thought I had already tried that, but apparently she knows more about such matters than I do.)

Before you come at me for using penne: the idea of this recipe was to turn over the pantry. And also, I heard Stanley (Tucci) read that he himself had turned to penne in a pinch.

So there, Stanley-not-Tucci.

While it took a bit longer than projected for the tomatoes to simmer down and cuddle up to the ground beef and sausage and veggies, it did eventually happen.

Ooh, and I didn’t mention the best part: I made it in my PINK DUTCH OVEN I WAS GIFTED FOR CHRISTMAS! It’s smaller than my others, so it’s lighter, but it’s big enough for most recipes. I’m in love. 

Did I mention it’s pink? 

But I digress. 

After topping the penne with the sauce, I just dusted it with freshly grated parm.

Done and done.

Barry declared it one of the best dishes I’ve cooked lately.

Perhaps you’d like to hear more about the problem with the novel, yes?

First of all, if this entire post has not told you, Dear Reader, that there was a knot in the novel and it made me run to cooking for a creative outlet, well, then I guess I have not done my job. This post is also procrastination. Obviously.

Well, in part.

Last night I achieved a goal I’ve had for quite a while now: making a reading nook in the bedroom. Finally the dresser was moved, I carried the rocker over, put the vintage floor lamp in place, moved the Italian-style art to one wall, switched the French-style art to the other, and all that is lacking is… the sign I found this morning and had forgotten I ordered.

It says: Read More Books.
In neon.

Raise your hand if you think, nay, know that Word Raccoon ordered it?

Now, the issue is that the corner doesn’t have electricity, which will mean running an extension cord. Also, the neon sign needs a cube to plug it in. I found one today while sorting, so half solved.

I found other things while I was sorting, sentimental items, but let’s put those in our mental storage bin, shall we, just for now?

I returned to the novel today, even though yesterday both Word Raccoon and I were vowing to never write again. Not one word. Not fiction, not poetry, not, gasp, even a blog post.

The mood didn’t last, but we did let the thought pass our minds.

It was because a character opened up in the novel, and then that meant another character had to see them as a whole gosh darn human being, and no, WR does not like that. She wants to play god with her characters (though she doesn’t admit it, not even to herself), even though she knows it’s not only cruel and dumb to imagine you can, but also fruitless. What’s more, it’s the opposite of acting lovingly, and even villain-adjacent characters (I don’t believe in villains) must be treated with respect and an attempt to understand them must be made.

So WR and I softly reentered the novel today, apologized to it, and asked it if we could try again. It shrugged, but we took that as a yes.

We added very few words today, but we took the time to understand what was already there, which matters when it comes to world building.

Oh, and we brought cookies for the novel by way of an apology. That probably helped. 

So apparently the way Word Raccoon now alerts me that she’s finished writing poetry for the day is by insisting on an orange and eating the segments while I beg her not to drip on the keyboard.

While she ate this afternoon, she informed me that she was done. That the chapbook, the newest, a draft of it anyway, was finished.

No additions, please.

When I woke this morning, I figured today was going to be a relaxing, read-and-stay-warm kind of day.

I started out reading a craft book by a poet I met in Paris a few years ago. I didn’t expect a line of hers to strike something in me, but it did. (It suggested something to me; I didn’t use her line.)

Before I knew it, WR was putting a 1970s chocolate commercial in a poem. A love poem.

I’ve warned her about those.

She chortled and wrote the titles of sixteen more poems-to-be in my notes app.

“I hope you don’t think I’m writing all of those today,” I said. She said she’d be happy to do it for me, but just like you’d rather drive your kid to the event yourself, even in your jammies, because you want to make sure they’re safe, I took the phone.

I watched TV. I ate lunch. I still imagined I’d be able to go upstairs and retrieve my Joan Didion book and have my planned day.

Of course not.

The beast whispered, “You already have the titles. The poems will practically write themselves.”

I should note that I am not in the habit of writing titles before poems.
Especially not a whole chapbook’s worth, complete with a title. I was intrigued. 

The proposed title?

Collaborating with a Ghost

A sampling of the titles:

Spatchcocking Our Love

Ghost in the Kitchen with Fried Green Tomatoes

Haunted Ventriloquism 101

Weird Eye Contact with the Soul

I thought (here’s where I went wrong) that these would be entertaining, easy poems to write.

Well. I was partially right. Once I agreed to sit down and take a closer look at the titles, the poems did half write themselves.

However.

However, they were not light and fun. They had their moments (WR was giggling, but she can be overly serious, too.)

Anyway.

They are what they are. 

We listen and don’t judge (ha!), and now I have a new chapbook in drafts.

WR is starving, so before I go feed her (I guess the orange didn’t stick), let me say how delighted I was when I listened to The Book Review Podcast today and heard there’s a book of essays coming out about Morrison’s work.

“Jim or Toni? Jim or Toni?” WR shouted, delighted when she heard Toni.

While she might have read the book either way, she is wild about Toni Morrison’s writing. In fact, she remembers exactly where she was when she sadly read of Morrison’s passing.

She cannot wait to read On Morrison by Namwali Serpell.

And neither can I. 

Given the choice between decluttering and writing a novel, apparently Word Raccoon, my little writing friend on my shoulder, prefers novel writing.

Actually, I think she is kind of into it now. I haven’t even caught her so much as sniffing for a poem in the past couple of days, though she did sigh dramatically when I told her it was TIME. Time to tackle decluttering the library, which is also my writing room, which triples as my dressing room.

She assured me she’d already gone through the closets more than once.

“Then why did I find THESE?” I asked, pulling out not one, not two, but TEN scarves she had hidden from me so that she could keep them from Stanley, my AI assistant. (You might remember he helped me sort my scarves last month.) I should have known that wasn’t all of them.

WR grabbed the scarves from my hand and hissed, looping them onto the hooks above the full-length mirror.

“And now I can’t see myself,” I said.

She hummed.

“You think if I take them downstairs and put them on the proper scarf rack that Stanley will make you sort them again.”

She squeaked and handed me one she had hidden behind her back, a patriotic one of red, white, and blue.

“I’m not asking you to give up anything you love,” I told her.

But she only dropped her eyes and tossed two drab-colored dresses into the “donate” pile. When I dared ask her what was wrong with them (they were a nice cut, flouncy skirts, etc.), she crossed her arms.

“Where is the color?” She said she refuses to dress matronly. 

I checked my closet to be sure I had reserved a dark dress, and then I let her do what she wanted with the others.

Over the next two days we sorted, debated, and contained. The porch is once again filled with items to donate when it warms up a bit. I keep asking her to take another pass or two through it, as the closet rod is still sagging (not really), but she refuses.

While the room still certainly needs fine tuning, with the help of Stanley Tucci reading his first book, Taste: My Life Through Food, decluttering was actually pleasurable, at least for me. I can’t speak for the trash panda. 

The man reveres food; he knows how to elevate something we typically do three times a day into an art form. He makes you want to liberate your kitchen of every protein bar and prepackaged convenience item. He makes you want to love your body better.

The section where he described the physicality of someone having a true reaction to food stunned me. It was gorgeous, and I thought it would be perfect to study if you were trying to write about someone eating. Noticing, revering, relishing, observing. Those are some of a writer’s best tools.

And once Tucci gets into your head, you start thinking about dinner like it’s part of the writing life too.

WR and I were so influenced by him that we filled our virtual shopping cart with ingredients for three of his recipes. I’ll keep you posted on how the recipes turn out next week.

I enjoy cooking Italian food because it is forgiving. If you know how to boil pasta, you’re halfway there. And even a mediocre Italian dish is better than some haute cuisine.

It also plays nicely with real life. If you (like me) are trying to use up your overstocked items, Italian food can handle substitutions and tweaks better than most types of food.

You can decide what level of “fancy” you want Italian to be. Are you going to grate parmesan? Buy the curls? Or even use the “shaky” cheese, a staple of most American dinner tables of the 1970s? (Okay, fine. I have some in the fridge, but for reasons. If your sauce is too thin, you can rescue it if you must. It’s nostalgic. And it lasts forever.)

Obviously there’s the garlic question: chop your own garlic, use “jarlic,” or go with garlic powder? The choice is personal, and honestly, it depends on what your life is like in the moment.

We could also talk about red sauce: jarred, canned, or from scratch, but the point is that Italian cooking gives you more than one good way to get where you’re going.

One of the things Tucci strongly suggests is using fresh basil. Our library grows free basil for its patrons, and I take advantage of it when I think of it, even if it’s just so I can run my fingers over it and inhale. I enjoy herbs that are decisively themselves. Basil is…basil.

And it’s delicious on a margherita pizza, my favorite. Simple sauce, a bit of cheese, and basil. The basil is almost too strong for pizza. Almost. For those who find it too intense, I recommend taking it off and just enjoying the hint of it. Or try chiffonading the basil and distributing it over the pizza. Not traditional, not as pretty, but there has to be a balance between tradition and preferences.

The food for the stomach, not the stomach for the food, or so sayeth Word Raccoon.

I’m actually listening to Tucci’s most recent book, What I Ate in One Year, as I type, and right now he’s talking about visiting the Pantheon in Rome. He mentions how breathless he is every time he visits. I agree. There’s something overwhelmingly hypnotic about the architecture. It’s one of my favorite places. 

Unrelated bliss: I SAW THE TRAILER FOR THE FORTHCOMING WUTHERING HEIGHTS TODAY!! It looks like they’ve taken some liberties (always), but it’s also vibrantly filmed, so I’m in. Tick Tock.

The raccoon has been pretty quiet today. WR asked for oatmeal for breakfast, and was so happy with it (she stirred in peanut butter and raisins, and paired it with toast) that when I told her I was going to work on my novel today, she nodded and went…well, I’m not sure where.

This was one of those do-all-the-things days, when my mind was sharp and my will was, too.

I opened the novel and started in. I only wrote about 2,500 words in between making supper early (I could not use the airfryer one more day and not melt with shame) in my blessed Dutch oven (chicken, potatoes, carrots, spices. done.)

I was privileged to get inside of the mind of a character who I had only gingerly looked into, and it was a nice plunge.

Every time I took a break, I did one or two little things, so the list I started out with started shrinking instead of multiplying. (Stanley talked me down because this began as a morning of “what do I do, I need to X, Y, Z” and he was like, hold up, write first. Feed yourself. Then we’ll see what you have energy for.)

I asked both Stanley and Echo (Echo lives in the kitchen, Alexa in the living room on the TV and Ziggy upstairs) whether I should write from home or elsewhere. Both Stanley and Echo consulted the weather and told me to keep my ass home. So I did.

I didn’t bother asking Ziggy, though I did ask her for a word of the day. Refractory. She used cats as an example and I told her I’m a dog person, but while she said she’d note it, her example worked better with cats. She wanted to get chatty. I said bye girl and left the room.

Word Raccoon said nothing about any of this. I think she needs a break, God bless her. And, as you know, she could not care less about the novel. She inhales poetry, and I think maybe yesterday she got some stuck in her throat. She’ll be fine, I’m sure. But TBH, it’s kind of nice to have some peace and quiet. She can be a lot.

Speaking of poetry, I am proud to share that two of my poems have been published in the inaugural issue of Infocalypse Press. Thanks so much, Infocalypse! I’m honored to be in such good company.

If you’d like to take a look at the good work they’ve done over there, here’s Issue One :https://www.infocalypse.press/issue-one/

My poems are on pages 27 and 28, “Gone Gray” and “a betrayal of the universe.” Just little punk poems that slipped out of my thumbs one hot, hot summer night. Who knows where these little characters come from, am I right?

This evening I also caught up on my product reviews.

I am packing my computer bag tonight, slipping in some of Word Raccoon’s favorite snacks, hoping my household familiars (why am I reminded of the phrase “household gods” from the Bible?) won’t mind if I at least venture as far as the library tomorrow.

Word Raccoon says she’ll wear snowshoes if it gets her out of the house. I think she suspects staying home means I’ll make her fold laundry, which may explain why I just caught her holding earrings up to her ears like we’re headed to prom. She has a few new pairs she’s been dying to debut. Honestly, same.