April is National Poetry Month, were you aware of that? We're almost halfway through the month of April already, and I haven't posted a poem yet. Tsk, tsk! Well, I'll remedy that situation right now. This latest WITS entry is composed by Graham, 7th grade, and was published April 9th. It's called ... Ghost Town ...
Tumbleweeds blow.
Cirrus clouds flow.
Deserts burn.
Dust devils churn.
Sand dunes shift.
Dust clouds drift.
Wagon grooves.
Nothing moves.
[photo by John Shields via flickr]
I have decided to stop all WOW (my writer's group) activities for a while. Last week was horrendously stressful for me. By the time Friday evening came along, I was drained both physically and emotionally but pushed myself to research and complete the Booker T. Washington post (due this past Sunday) and then forge ahead to try and complete two of my own autobiographical re-writes (also due on Sunday) to submit for our next critique meeting on April 19th.
I was able to submit only one of the re-writes. Just that one gave me a lot of problems! I spent many hours on it both Saturday and Sunday, but couldn't find a way to successfully get past this one little section. I gave up completely on trying to re-write the second and turned to what has given me a great deal of pleasure these last fifteen months ... "Goldenrod's thoughts". That's why you saw two posts from me on Sunday instead of waiting until Monday, as I'd initially thought when I wrote TGIF.
I felt such relief yesterday when I notified the rest of the group that I would not be attending this next critique meeting. Since then, I have been blissfully whiling my time away with no pressures or constraints other than those I place upon myself.
Most importantly, tho, the nightmares have stopped. What nightmares? I can't even bring myself to write about them. They were so real. Horrible! I will only tell you that - twice! - I woke myself up screaming and sobbing, and had to physically get up out of bed and check a couple of different places to make sure that what had been so real only a few moments before did not actually exist.
My daughter's (age deleted) birthday is tomorrow. I found a neat card yesterday while shopping, and will hand-deliver it. I won't be able to get away with surreptitiously delivering it, because Genie (their very loud black Labrador retriever "watch dog") wouldn't let me do such a thing. Doesn't matter if it's grandma or whomever ... she announces any and all in a manner that echoes throughout their household. :)
So what's going on with Beth? She writes that her passport is now almost completely filled with stamps and other official marks of the various countries she has visited on this trip. Where did she tell me she is now? Give me a sec here while I check her latest e-mail ... ... ... She's in Jakarta, for crying out loud! I last wrote about her on the 31st of March, her birthday. Her latest projected return date is the 24th of this month, but I won't be picking her up. Her sister will. See this post (published just a couple or so weeks prior) for some of the good news about her family. I miss her! She's such a dear friend. It's wonderful to hear that she's safe and sound and will be back here with us very soon.
Wendy's been posting like crazy. Have you been periodically checking to see what's been happening with her in her quest to conquer Everest? Heavens to Betsy! The "Where in the World is Wendy?" site has just - within the last day or so - been updated. Check it out for yourself. And just in case you lost the link to Wendy's blog, here it is again.
I'm going to conclude this post with a Maxine cartoon. I love this woman!
4 comments:
Well of COURSE the winner of the spelling bee was someone named Aditya Chemudupaty! You don't need to become a good speller if your name is something easy to spell like Sam Brown. Poor Aditya was destined to become a spelling bee champ.
Very interesting on your decision with WOW. I say this because within the last 6 months my dear friend Amy quit attending her writers critique group for very much the same reasons as you gave us. She is HAPPILY plugging away at her writing again now that she doesn't go to the weekly meetings...
You know Goldenrod, I just have to throw this in too: I LOVE reading your thoughts here on your blog. I know you've been busy with WOW, and I get that. And respect that. And understand that. But selfishly...I'm kinda hoping we see an increase of posts here. NO PRESSURE, lol. Just my hopes...
Love ya!
I enjoyed the variety of information in this post. Happy Birthday to your daughter and am glad that your world appears to have found a more even keel.
I KNEW you'd just love the name of that spelling bee winner, Tammy. Is that a riot, or is it not?!?
How old is your friend Amy, anyway? Is she - or anywhere near even 'close to' - my age? I really thought that it might be related to how old I was. I'm being serious here! I was getting SO discouraged.
Hey, Craig? I left a somewhat extensive (you know me) comment on one of your recent posts that didn't get published. (You know how you 'moderate' your comments, right?) Think I probably didn't do something right. I'll re-submit it, altho it'll have to wait.
(In the meantime, tho - but it'll be later today - I'll go ahead and check back with that post just to be doubly sure that it didn't get published. My e-mails are not working just like they should again. Ah, well!)
Post a Comment