Wednesday, March 10, 2010

writerly things / culinary things

I am having one of those weeks where I want to read too many things at once & I keep reading the same page over & over because I don't want to miss anything. This slows me down somewhat. I often read poetry / fiction / non-fiction simultaneously because my mind can keep these texts separate as if there are little compartments inside my head for each genre. I have been reading a lot of cookbooks. It feels like spring so we are eating salads. Yesterday I made a salad of strawberries & chickory with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sea salt & pepper. Strawberries aren't quite in season yet, but I don't care. It was good. The night before I made spinach salad with sauteed shrimp and red bell peppers & that was tasty too. I am reading Alice Waters's cookbook The Art of Simple Food & while I know how to make most of these things already, the section on vegetables is packed with ideas making the purchase worthwhile. It also inspires me to make good homemade food for myself, because it can be so simple to make a pot of soup or some pasta or a nice salad.

While I am doing a good deal of cooking, there isn't much writing going on...I don't want to be one of those people who are always talking about how they are writing / not writing; however, it's an unavoidable topic (solipsism! available right here on a regular basis). Ish. These last few months have been totally dry. I've arranged & rearranged a new chapbook manuscript (which ended up as a semi-finalist in a chap contest) & played around with some older pieces but I haven't written anything new & it makes me feel rather ghostlike & disconnected. I've just started scribbling ideas in my journal again this week. I think these periods of down time are fairly common--even necessary--but there's always this fear that one may not be able to restart the engine, so to speak.

The search for a glamorous job complete with retirement benefits & a fancy title to support my fragile ego is stalled, primarily because I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I might be a cowgirl or a detective or an astrophysicist. I'm still trying to decide. Of course, I'm willing to settle for retail or data entry or shampooing hair.

Nevertheless, life has been busy. Lots of family stuff, some fun literary events, the inevitable dailiness that keeps things rolling along. I'm reading this Friday at The Book Cellar with the lovely folks from Oyez Review. I have never been there, but it looks like a totally cool place. I'm looking forward to it.

New poems are forthcoming in a few print journals this spring. This makes me feel happy. Cyborgia will be out soon, soon, soon! This makes me even happier. I still need to revamp my hideously ugly website. I'm setting a deadline for the end of April. There's also a pretty positive review of Artifice #1 (they mention my cyborg poems!) at Big Other.

2 comments:

Kathleen said...

The salads sound delicious!

Congratulations on the poems coming out this spring, and the book. You have a lot going on with the book, so maybe the poems will tumble out again after that's out & about in the world!

Susan said...

The salads were really very good!! I have set a goal to eat something leafy & green every day. I thought I disliked salads for the first twenty-five odd years of my life, but have learned that what I really dislike is iceberg lettuce & bottled salad dressing. Yuk.

I am very excited about Cyborgia & I hope that people enjoy it. I imagine marketing the book will be a lot of work, but also *fun* so that's okay :)