Dear Reader,

Whatever ails a person, Anne Lamott is almost always the answer. Or that’s what I told Word Raccoon this evening.

Writer’s block?

Bird by Bird.

Grieving?

Traveling Mercies. Anne: “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

The ham of God essay in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.

I could go on.

I’m watching her on YouTube right now, on NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin.

(This is not a poem, just random thoughts.)

I’m sitting here having just submitted another residency application and listening to Anne talk about the radical art of embracing yourself, and this woman does not have an inauthentic bone in her. If I were to spend time with a writer that I don’t know, I wish it could be her. (And not just because she’s a writer.) 

From her trademark dreadlocks to her flowing voice that reminds me a bit of my Aunt Bonnie’s, from her asking the interviewer questions, she is the realest person I know. She wears a hoodie, a T-shirt under it, a cloth headband on her head. A crescent moon on a chain around her neck, and some sort of medallion, a star on a strand hiding partially beneath her shirt.

I wish she had an 800 number (are those still a thing? Of course they aren’t) for Word Raccoon to call when she just needs someone to reassure her. To hear her soothing voice.

I mean…Bird by Bird is my writing bible. Not only hee writing advice (invaluable; everyone should read it), her warmth and authenticity, her candor, changed my life.

Her permission to write shitty first drafts? Come on! For a recovering perfectionist, that was gold. Her description of writing restaurant reviews, starting at not even the beginning and writing and writing and then trimming off what wasn’t the review? Well, I just edited a poem I wrote last year and realized it had two lines of throat clearing. I thanked the lines and sent them to find a new poem to occupy.

When I lost my father, I told a friend that I needed to read Anne Lamott. My father was the first person close to me I’d lost, and I’d been told it takes about 18 months to really grieve.

I believe it now.

However, riddle me this: I tried to read Anne then, I did. But I couldn’t. So I guess I have to amend what I said to WR about Anne being the answer to everything. To many, many things, she is. And I suspect not being able to read her had more to do with where I was in my life at the time. My beliefs were shifting. I had to accept that while she was an answer, she wasn’t the answer.

This poetry packet I just submitted for the residency had several radioactive poems in it, mainly grief-adjacent poems that I needed to write, and yet looking at them now, I wonder if I seem like a sad sack. I don’t think I am, though I have lived through hard things (who hasn’t?), but I stress that I lived through them. Or maybe even I lived through them.

Again, random thoughts on what has turned out to be a gorgeous September evening. Random visitors have pulled up and carted off things from beneath the tree.

I’m glad.

The desk is not gone yet.

I will give it two days before putting it in the garage for spring cleanup.

Wait, this just in: our neighbor came back for the desk. He writes, too. Or maybe his wife is going to use it. All I know is, it has been claimed. Possibly for literature, WR.

The poems I submitted for the residency application:

No One Mentioned What Became of the Rabbits
A Handkerchief Will Do
Lardo di Colonnata
At the Page, Like Neruda
Touch the Turkey
No Lying Still for Lilies
Necromancer Duties: Pergo

Dear Reader, I wish you could read them and tell me what you think of them, where they’re strong, where they need a little touch-up paint. Dear Reader, maybe some day you will.

Word Raccoon says to hush, that it’s time to write another poem, that maybe Anne Lamott might like to join us in one. WR, I would not be at all surprised if you put her into a poem. Why not?

Drema

Dear Reader,

Welcome, Dear Reader, to another episode of “All over the place,” blog edition.

First of all, Word Raccoon and I had our yearly eye exam today. She told everyone going in that if she didn’t need new glasses, she didn’t want new glasses, because she still lurves her old ones. 

She didn’t need new glasses. Whew.

That gorl gets easily attached. Maybe too easily attached? 

Once there, she had to fill out fiddly paperwork and we KNOW how she feels about that. She scribbled her responses and wondered just why, when she has been coming to this office for two decades, she is being asked for her name and birthdate, etc. 

She briefly wondered what would happen if she refused to fill it out. 

This is compounded by the fact that she has two medical scans back to back tomorrow and she had to check in on the app separately for both, answering the same dang information. And they’re both at the same facility! 

When she gets there, they will ask for some of the same information. Again.

What if she just refuses to answer it again, asking them to refer to their records?

What if we all did that? 

We should. 

WR says she might. Bureaucracy is the thief of creativity.

Then she received ANOTHER text asking her to check in for tomorrow’s appointments, though she knows she already did! That she refuses to do. 

Anywho, as WR always does when faced with transitions (the closing of the café), she is still sorting and cleaning with a side now of writing. 

She didn’t get things to the curb yesterday, though she did today. One neighbor grabbed onto the humidifier, while another texted Barry to ask if the lamp was still available and if I would hold it for him (I put it by his garage, gladly.). 

A young man stopped and picked up the desk chair, and I almost cried with relief. It’s hard to let go of things that have helped you create whole worlds, even when you have something better to sit in, so to speak.  I’m so glad the old one is going to live a proper second life. Or I assume it is.

The desk, which was more difficult to lug out to the tree, WR really hopes someone takes, though it is cheaply made. It has done its duty. 

Because WR made the mistake (?) of watching another Space Maker Method video while eating breakfast, she spent three timers (so she wouldn’t be late for her eye appointment) sorting the pantry. 

Again, this is totally related to “I guess I will need to be in my space more because of the café  closure and also, weather incoming too soon and now how can a raccoon tolerate being closed in?” 

The good news is, there are two bags of culled cabinet items to deposit in the community pantry at our local library when I get a chance.

The bad news is, WR has an ache in her heart and throat. She doesn’t know what comes next. Where is her writing home to be? Why does everything have to change?

I must confess that the naughty animal stuck her middle finger up when she went past the café and saw the “For Sale” sign up. How can they be doing that so soon? Do they have no decency? 

She has written on her novel for a bit today, and she wants to do more, but she’s restless. She’s assessing whether she ought to go to the gym because probably furniture-to-the-curb wrestling counts, and yet I have a feeling this raccoon needs to go burn off some grief. 

On the positive side, the present-day timeline of the novel is allowing me to apply a layer of language now, though thinly. So I know it can be done, will be done. I still hope to finish a tight-ish draft by year’s end. 

And, tbh, it’s the end of September. Only two more days to submit to particular journals and fellowships. I may well balance writing with that over the next two days as a transition. 

WR: long rambling post.

Everyone else:…

Who knew raccoons were so emotionally fragile, LOL? 

But the mums are gorgeous. 

Drema 

Dear Reader, 

Out of sight, out of mind, says Word Raccoon about her wardrobe, which is probably why we spent yesterday evening assembling the *trumpet blast* Great Wardrobe Wall of 2026!

It really wasn’t that difficult. And honestly, that wasn’t on the agenda, but after the handyman did all of those household projects the other day (more on that another time), WR said she wanted to do something and well, since that HUGE box has sat on the sun porch for, oh, a couple of months I guess, I opened it up.

There was another box inside.

Smaller, at least.

But still heavy.

I opened the box and ended up carrying armloads of the racks upstairs. (Barry was napping for his gig, which I was excused from because sadly, every time I go to that particular venue I get sick. All of the smoke, probably. WR can’t handle it.) 

Anyway, there were obstacles in the library/dressing room. (Used to be a writing room but there are so many better places to write nowadays. Wait, there were…) 

In order to fit this wall of interconnected racks, some things had to leave the room, some that should never have been there to begin with.

There was a huge folding bin meant to store pickleball gear!! that WR repurposed for “need to try these on” clothing. Reader, WR does not play pickleball, LOL.

Misc. other items had migrated to the bin, but that was its original purpose, which seems dumb now. Well, wait, I think originally she was going to use it as a laundry cart. It is now about to make its way out to our treelawn with a “Free” sign on it.

As is the desk…the one I brought home from the thrift shop and painted probably a decade ago. I never liked the color. I haven’t used it in a long, long time. So bye-bye. 

It, too, is going to be escorted to the street. 

But wait, there’s more. 

The desk has a chair, a well-worn chair that has seen better days but was an upgrade when it was bought over 17 years ago, I think. But there has been the great office chair shuffle: I was gifted a fab new office chair, then Barry received one, but I was given a gaming chair to review, which later became his new music room chair, orphaning his office chair (his room is full), so I decided we will swap out the older upstairs office chair for his former one. 

The older one may go join its friends under the tree.

A floor lamp that has been unable to find a new place to stand will likewise be asked to leave.

A cabinet that had been drafted into becoming a shoe cabinet in the library is now going to be repurposed on the sun porch as a seasonal storage cabinet. If the items I put in it don’t play nicely there, the cabinet will be asked at a later date to stand at the curb. 

Because I truly forget about clothes I have if I can’t see them, before erecting this in-the-open wardrobe rack I had set up a table with bins on it to see if that helped. It did a little, but I still had to root through the bins and often wore the same workout clothes every time they were washed because I couldn’t see the others and just grabbed from the top.

Ditto with what I dubbed the “outfit of the summer” that a couple we go out with sometimes has seen me wear too many times. But it kept coming up in rotation, LOL.

The table was not kicked out but was folded and put away.

Anywho, WR and I turned on an audiobook, a thriller that we listened to on 1.5 speed, and said we were just going to look at the rack, see how difficult the instructions seemed. 

Five minutes later we were just going to put together the left-hand side of the unit to see if we could do it solo.

Then the middle, because it was right there. 

Before we knew it, WR and I were in the thick of it, as is our way. We always trick ourselves into momentum.

Oh, and I had promised WR an ice cream cone if she at least tried to finish the racks, something she reminded me of when we were almost finished but the light was fading from the sky. 

While I can drive in the dark, I prefer not to, and so I broke my rule of finishing the damn thing before the reward and did an ice cream run. Which placated WR and she finished assembling it, though not without incident. 

As instructions are wont to be, these were unclear on how far down a particular shelf was supposed to go. We tried to count sections from the diagram, but could not. So we guessed. Incorrectly. 

Which meant five minutes of taking apart and reassembling, but this really was not difficult. The worst thing was not being able to access the back and so having to climb on a step stool (!) to reach the top and also having nothing to grab onto unless the poles we were assembling count and they do not. 

Couldn’t grab the wall because it is in front of the huge window. So we were very careful.

Long story short, we finished. 

And though we were dadgum tired, we wanted to see our clothes on the racks, so we began emptying our closet onto it. 

We had also discovered many garments that needed hanging. 

We had to be ruthless as to what constituted a summer garment vs. fall and winter, and thus were able to stuff an under-bed storage bag to give our wardrobe breathing room.

It’s awesome, if I do say so myself! 

There are dedicated spaces for blouses, dresses, pants, shoes, scarves, belts. There are top racks that I can envision filling with hats. 

Today I will need to spend some time rearranging, etc. But WR and I are thrilled with this visual arrangement! (See, watching SpaceMaker Method has paid off. I may even arrange my clothes by color!) 

But also, Dear Reader, we want to want to write poetry or fiction. Today, so far we do not. 

Why does that always scare me? I know writing comes back. It always does.

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon has been missing her poetry. But her attempts at writing it during the café’s last day were rather unsuccessful, so she gave up and went home after saying her goodbyes.

She does not like goodbyes.

She spent the rest of the day at home, submitting eight packets of poetry to journals while a handyman did some long-overdue and some exciting house repairs. (You’ll get the full list when he’s finished!) He was there so long that she almost asked the him if he required a cot. She did feed him a snack.

Submitting poetry means going back through old poems and smoothing their hair. WR was pleased to note that for the two themed submissions she had plenty of water-adjacent poems, as well as scents for the ones that required those.

She enjoyed revisiting her lovingly crafted poems, those more polished, those less so, too, but full of fire. It reminded her of all she loves best.

Then, she surprised me. While she sat nearby in case the handyman had questions (and he did), she applied for a six-week residency, even though she had to update her CV. Ugh. She despises fiddly paperwork, but I told her if she wants to go focus on her novel for a month and a half in a gorgeous wilderness (maybe, if she is fortunate enough to be chosen), it takes doing just what she was doing.

When I told her that we also had to choose a writing sample from Novel #3 for the application, she put her little furry nose in the air and declared it impossible to choose from some many pages.

She demanded chocolate in kind, then acted wounded and betrayed when I gave her a freeze-dried peppermint patty.

Yeah, it does sound better than it tastes, WR. LOL.

Pardon me, dear reader, if we seem off. I think we’re still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the closure of the café. Or this headache. Or the fact that sleep again is a phantom. We tried to write two poems about it so we could process the closure, but they were laughably bad.

Sometimes the writing just needs a break from itself. Or for itself.

So next week, there is no master plan. No “Where’s Waldo” hunting for the perfect spot. I’ll just let the writing day happen. Maybe I’ll write at the kitchen table. Maybe I’ll wander uptown if I need to clear my head. The world keeps moving, and so do we.

We all know that poetry is as free as the wind. Which is, much to our regret sometimes, as it should be.

Would we want it any other way?

Sometimes, sure. But there is a quiet kind of peace in just appreciating and letting things be what they are. 🙂

Remember that, WR.

Fondly,

Drema

Dear Reader,

Sad sack post forthcoming, because today is the last day this café will be open.

I didn’t give my heart fully to this version of the café, I confess. Because the other that had previously been here had meant so much to me, had become intertwined with my novel writing. This one has too, but I see it more as having been part of my poetry.

If only Word Raccoon could take that Japanese maple when we leave. If only we could take the porch, where you are covered and yet not. Where you can watch the whole town, learn its rhythms perhaps better than it knows them.

I told myself, I told Word Raccoon, that we were not going to write this post. That the writing is what is important to preserve, ultimately, and that we can walk by the tree sometimes if we miss it too much. That we can pretend we are back on the porch.

I try to think of the positives: If I write at the library, I can bring my own snacks. I can go home for lunch and come back. If I write at the café uptown, I will still see some of these humans who have become a part of my life, who tease me and ask if they are in my writing.

Sometimes I say yes, because naturally, they are.

Everything is.

Every car that passes. Every person. Every squirrel, every bird.

I don’t want to think of this as saying goodbye to a café full of people I’ve grown to care about, from the baristas who have part of my order waiting for me sometimes to the cook who always brings my breakfast to me with the biggest smile on his face.

It’s a small town. I might see them around…or not. (Cry emoji here.)

Maybe this time I won’t plan a place to write at all, and I’ll wake up and see what I’m in the mood for day by day. 

Maybe I’ll “Where’s Waldo?” this thing, but with me and WR, obviously, instead. And maybe eventually one place will feel better than another. Maybe not.

But hell, once I’m writing, the place tends to disappear anyway.

Which is not to say I won’t miss the café. Word Raccoon and I absolutely will.

It’s been our constant.

Anyway.

What makes a good farewell gift for those who have ministered to your writing for a couple of years? 

Drema

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon was at the gym at 5:30 this morning.

Recently we were at the gym and met the new coach, who asked if that was the time we generally came to the gym.

WR laughed.

No, no, Angie. We go to the gym whenever the spirit moves us or whenever Word Mom (that’s me) puts on her shoes and says, “Let’s go!”

What WR is not telling you is that sleep is apparently optional nowadays. Since I was awake early and trying to solve the day like it was a damn equation, I let X = Go to the gym NOW.

Then I came home and addressed my craving for Vitamin C with neither the oranges I wanted nor the lemons our grocery delivery guy apparently thought were a brilliant substitution for avocados??? but pineapple and applesauce.

Meanwhile Herbert, the grumpy ol’ Muppet who tries to live rent-free in my head, started up his Muppet Show chortling and informed me that if I keep this up, I will end up doing zero writing today.

He knows that’s what happened yesterday.

Well. Sort of.

I did finish Hollywood, Ending right before my coffee date and questioned all my life choices, damn you, John Green. With about fifty pages to go, I thought I had it all figured out and worried I might be disappointed.

Reader, I did NOT have it figured out, and I was NOT disappointed.

I started the novel in Writing Craft Mode and had to get past hearing John’s voice instead of the characters’, but eventually I willingly followed Juniper and Kai wherever they wanted to take me. And they took me somewhere I was not expecting.

That is all I am saying. I am militantly anti-spoiler. (Usually. Sorry about the Their Eyes spoiler the other day.)

But what did I do yesterday instead of writing?

I accepted an offer for a free week of a newspaper archive.

Friends, this was a mistake.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

I went deeply down the rabbit hole and looked up anyone who had ever interested me.

I found newspaper ads from when my dad offered an attic/basement cleanout and hauling service when I was a young child. When I saw our old New Jersey phone number, I closed my eyes and discovered I could still recite it immediately, like I was in kindergarten memorizing it all over again.

I remembered how my dad took the secondhand items he didn’t want to end up in a landfill and, for a short time, opened a shop.

I remember spending time there, carefully sorting through the toys and playing with them. I can’t remember individual toys, but I remember the textures and colors: vinyl, blue, orange, wicker, polyester, pink.

Maybe that’s why I’m such a believer in donating things if they’re at all salvageable.

I found the announcement of my birth. I found the announcement of my mom’s release from the hospital after having me.

My mother was named when she was released from the hospital, but in the announcement of my birth, she was a “Mrs.”

I know that was the convention. But damn. She had literally just given birth to a human being and apparently did not merit a first name.

I found so many things. So many word goodies.

I treasure the details.

So no, I didn’t write yesterday.

But maybe I did something writers also have to do.

I seeded my imagination.

And apparently this morning I harvested a blog post from it.

Now Word Raccoon would like me to stop analyzing all of this and get ready for the penultimate day of writing at the café.

At this point, I think I’m beyond sadness about its closing and have arrived at: Okay. What’s next?

It’s not like life is asking my permission anyway. (On another day, when I’m more awake and more caffeinated, I will view this as an opportunity to rethink my writing spaces/places. Just not today.) 

Drema

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon is engrossed.

She’s halfway through John Green’s first novel for adults, and she loves how he talks about art in it, especially. But then again, he’s married to someone who used to be an art curator for a museum, so no surprise there.

And now WR has to find that Warhol book we bought that he used for research and read it, but also…shhh, World!

And TBH, she’s a little miffed that apparently she only gets a “Jn” as a signature. I mean…sure, he signed 85K+, but still…

We would have kept reading last night, but we had a headache, and we were not about to read this with a headache.

Now if you will excuse us, we have a coffee date today, but until then, it’s all Juniper and Kai over here.

#AmReading

Drema

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon and I have been holding out on you.

We hope you don’t mind. We had been asked to keep the secret for a while, and then we wanted to wait a beat because of the loss of dear Mawgy.

But remember that pinked grass I mentioned?

Well.

THERE WAS A REASON I SAID THAT.

Our son Zack and his girlfriend Erica are having a baby girl.

Myah Ann is coming in March 2027. (The Ann is after my middle name!)

We’ve known about the baby for a month and a half, but we waited to share the news until they were ready for us to. Recently, they came to our house with a gender-reveal cannon and a card, though they already knew.

We pressed the button.

Out came pink, white, and gold confetti ALL OVER THE SIDEWALK AND YARD AND I’M LEAVING IT THERE, MAYBE FOREVER!  I LOVE IT!

(Not that Word Raccoon and I believe colors have genders, but we understood the assignment. LOL.)

And I made an absolute spectacle of myself, yelling and dancing. Regrettably, there is video evidence.

Maybe I should mind. I do not.

Because I have been saying all along: You can say whatever you want, but that baby is a girl.

LOL.

AND SHE IS A GIRL.

In fact, I have already begun referring to her as Princess Myah. Not “princess” in the stereotypical, must wear pink and play with dolls sense (unless she wants to). Princess as in: she is royalty and I am willingly in her employ.

Anything she asks? YES.

Anything she wants? ALSO YES, if at all possible.

We are so thrilled. So excited. We cannot wait to meet her.

Someone said Princess Myah looks like a little turtle in her sonogram.

So apparently Turtle is her first nickname.

(Sorry, Myah. You aren’t even here yet and apparently you have a nickname, though I’m not mad about it. I hope you won’t be if it sticks. Why am I reminded of the Barbara Kingsolver character named Turtle, also a child?)

I originally thought I would make something elaborate for this announcement. A cute little vertical story with scenes and characters and a grand reveal.

But I can’t.

I just want to speak from my heart and say how completely overjoyed we are. When I love, I LOVE. Forever.

Word Raccoon may be the tiniest bit jealous because I have already begun imagining Myah’s future. Things I might teach her. Things we might make together. Places we might go. Books I might read to her. (I have a list of all of these things but this post would get SOO long if it added them.)

And yes, I know. I know that none of us gets to write the future in advance. Heartbreak can reach for you and there’s not a thing you can do to stop it. 

It would probably be safer to tell myself to hold off. Don’t imagine too much. Don’t hope too much. Don’t dream too much. Wait until she gets here. Wait until you know. Protect yourself.

But I refuse to live that way.

Because if you start papier-mâchéing over your heart to keep it safe, eventually what do you have left?

Besides, papier-mâché melts in the rain anyway. 

So come on, March. We’re ready.

Word Raccoon will just have to learn to share me with you.

Drema 

P.S. Yes, I wrote a poem about her the day I found out she existed, though the poem is addressed to “Baby Drudge.” It’s a hot mess but I was so excited when I found out she was a girl that I actually read it to the family.

Dear Reader,

Today was catch-up day. As in, the past week has been absorbed (by necessity, and rightly so).

My plan was to go to the gym first thing this morning. I did not give Word Raccoon a choice – I made her start the day in workout clothes.

But once there I discovered that while yes, indeed, they were reopening today, they would not open until 1.

Which meant I was not going to be able to shower early afterward and re-caulk the tub as soon as it was dry, as I had planned.

Fine, fine. Tomorrow is another day and all.

I came home and ate breakfast and watched an episode of SpaceMaker Method.

Note to self: do not let WR do that before I have remapped her day when plans change.

Can you see where this is going?

She insisted on decluttering three huge bags of clothes.

I’m proud of her, I am. She’s prepping for the closet organization wall I will be assembling later this month, so I get why she wanted to do that. (She also dropped them in a local donation bin when she returned to the gym, so good on her.)

But it was a backwards day because as soon as business and society had reopened this morning, we had appointments to confirm and coffee dates to extend before the café closes for good, and then one dreaded administrative task that we had been putting off for a week. For good reason. But we really, really wanted to put it behind us.

We did that after lunch, and though it took some doing and some mental profanity, it’s finished. (As far as we know. Unless we hear differently.)

Then and only then did we sit down with When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse and read a few pages, WR stopping every so often to make argumentative notes. (Some of her notes weren’t arguments. In fact, many lines were just thoughts on language.)

We changed over to reading the poetry collection we bought yesterday for inspiration, and it was potent. WR gnashed her teeth when I asked why she couldn’t write like that.

She said I had hurt her feelings, that I know that she’s still a baby poet and also that I know she resists even the movement that works in others’ poems because she prefers her poems to spontaneously birth themselves. (Then I make her revise!)

Then she began writing a devastating poem that both surprised me and didn’t. That one is…well. Time will tell. It needs revising, but not yet. It’s called “The Protest,” and I suspect it will be one of those poems that stick. 

I really enjoyed reading the accretion of poetry in the collection, piled up by one poet after another, all different in style and yet the same in result. (Does that make any damn sense?) 

And while I bitch and moan when the music in a movie tries to push my emotions without earning it, tries to make me feel, I willingly surrender to a good poem. So many nuggets of truth, the sanctification of everyday moments. These are people who understand that life and valuing every moment is the treasure.

Sorry. Post-loss thoughts, I guess. Borderline overly sentimental, but I stand by the outline of it. 

Last night, WR and I began reading that art essay collection I bought with the intriguing title, and we were so damned jealous of the author who talked about her first encounters with visual art and how disoriented she was by it and how she desired to learn about it.

Relatable. 

She also said she will always know more about language than paintings. (Which, same.)

I was jealous because I am sometimes still that hungry young woman in front of a painting begging it to explain itself to me, because I sense things I can’t quite grasp.

I am the one whose face dripped in Spain before a Picasso, not one anyone mentions much (Couple in an Andalusian Patio), and I had to trace those lines myself with paint to see if I could understand what he meant. (God, was I really trusting him to explain love??)

Once I was the one listening to the Matisse painting of Olga, asking myself what she might be saying behind what he thought he was portraying her as saying.

Once I was the one lightheaded before other works of art, nearly fainting before the Pietà, not expecting it to appear as I toured St. Peter’s Basilica. (I had forgotten, then there it was.) 

And there was my irrational reluctance to leave David, in Florence, only being coaxed away by the impatient tour guide when I promised David I would return. (I did, a few years later.)

So many other works of art and artists have spoken to me, and I have taken them all in as a part of me. (This is a pre-making-supper blog post, so pardon the hasty assembly.)

Right now there is a Mary Cassatt exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, and I was so close to it opening week, but it was Labor Day Weekend, not the best time to crowd into the city. But I hunger to see it. I know it might seem like I’m an artistic lightweight to favor Impressionism, and yet I do.

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate tons of other art. Why, I’ve bought art right off a local café’s wall on multiple occasions.

The Arts are swirling in my head, and I’m always interacting with them, though nowadays I can’t seem to read anything or see any exhibits without poems coming to me or essays or whatever. It’s a blessing and a curse, you know? 

I do not know how people survive without immersion in ideas and beauty, no matter where they find them. For all my talk of museums I do not know how they limit their definition of them to museums and such. 

I do not know.

Word Raccoon, what do you make of it all?

Anyone up for a road trip to the Art Institute for the Cassatt?

Anyone? 

Drema

Dear Reader,

Alas, today contained another memorial, and after extending condolences, lunch was Chinese food followed by a pop-by to Ollie’s Bargain Outlet.

(Not an ad!)

Y’all, it might be my and Word Raccoon’s new book addiction spot. Even as I complain about needing more bookshelves and bargain with myself and Word Raccoon about weeding out some books, I couldn’t resist! I mean…look at those prices!

We first wandered into an Ollie’s when we had half an hour to spare a few months ago. Apparently, that was all it took.

Most of the books are $3.99. At that price, leaving them there began to seem financially irresponsible, or so sayeth WR.

In case the photo doesn’t do it for you:

When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It by Ben Yagoda
Trajectory by Richard Russo
Elsewhere by Richard Russo
Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery by Jeanette Winterson
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry edited by Billy Collins
The Only Story by Julian Barnes
The 50s: The Story of a Decade by The New Yorker

I even checked our library’s catalog while we were there, and of the books I was considering, they only had one, a Nancy Mitford, so I put that one back and bought the rest because you’re not going to find these just anywhere, and certainly not for $3.99! 

Why, the shipping would be more! (I sound like that unintentional ASMR curtain woman, am I right?!) 

There were a few more books I kinda wanted, but I told myself they are niche enough that they are likely to still be there when we return sometime. And then there were a couple that were right author, wrong book. 

But I keep thinking if I bide my time, I will find the elusive creatures without having to pay full price. 

I think I’m most excited to read Winterson (that title!) and the volume of poetry. Then again, maybe the Russo. And didn’t I start the year reading Barnes’s latest? Maybe I should catch up on him.

Oh, and I saw Patchett’s Tom Lake on sale at a distance there, though it had its own special display case, so it might not have been $3.99 like the rest. But it’s at a discount store? Already? 

It came out in 2023, WR reminds me. Still. That seems like just yesterday. 

And wait, wasn’t that the year my own Southern-Fried Woolf came out? (I see the sales reports monthly and well, I still get a bit, but Word Raccoon and I are not exactly getting wealthy from the proceeds. Which is fine, because that’s not why we wrote it.)

WR might be on her walking pad right now trying out her new handle so she doesn’t fall off like she did the first time she tried it, but I’m going to be reading very soon.

I’m also contemplating pretty seriously a DQ pumpkin pie Blizzard.

The gym is reopening tomorrow after the renovations, not that a Blizzard deserves penance. Hmm. I think WR just convinced me to upgrade from a mini to a small. I mean, the PPB is only available once a year, am I right?

Drema