I am reading tonight at the Cafe and really don't want to read any of the poems I've written. There are better, more interesting poems that flit around the edges and slip away whenever I reach for them. Or maybe lurk instead of flit. I am restless and behind, as usual on every single thing, but there is at least a stretch of vacation time on the horizon after the 4th. Meanwhile, I am having more anxiety dreams. The other night I dreamt I was fighting zombies, but it was a musical we made up as we went along. My voice had that great acoustic quality that you only find in bathrooms. Last night I dreamt about heights and falling from them. A new friend lives in a little nest high above Michigan Avenue and has the most heavenly view. I might continue seeing him just for the view and the fact that he is nice, plays the guitar well, and doesn't seem like a compulsive liar. I am still slowly making progress on new chapbooks and hope to unveil them on the 1st, but everything is slow, slow, slow, and never enough time and way too many interruptions. Everything is an interruption to something else and I am tired, tired, tired.

weekly covet: grand hotel

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penpals

Some asked me the other day if anyone really wrote letters anymore the other day, and I got to thinking about all the penpals I used to have when I was in high school. They seemed to be everywhere—there was a girl in Ireland with whom I gushed over celebrity crushes, and Irish boy who was hilariously sarcastic, an all too sweet Belgian boy. Others from Turkey, France, Australia, even one from Brazil. Mind you, this is all before the internets. Now you can walk onto facebook and meet all sorts of people all over the world. But back then (circa 1989-1992), we only had International Pen Friends. Our social studies teacher in the 9th grade introduced us to it, and afterwards, I and my friends saved up to pay the small fee to get connected to people all over the globe who were roughly our age. I had as many as 7-8 at a time, and while some correspondences died off after a few letters, others continued for a few years. Me and my real life friends would get together and read each other's pen pal letters with voyeuristic relish. Perhaps it was a fascination with the world beyond Rockford, that there even was a world beyond Rockford which seemed unlikely sometimes.

fashion friday

picnic by wickedpen featuring Eric Michael clothing

Following the picnic theme for this week's coveted items, I thought this might be a nice collection. Never mind that you definitely wouldn't be wearing those shoes in a park on grassy areas without tumbling into the bushes a couple times (which could be fun depending on who you were with)..but still they are awfully pretty..

Last Chance--Discounted Subscription Offer Ends 6/30

details here

We are offering for a limited time, complete 2010 subscriptions for dgp for a special low price that's nearly 50% off the list price if you were to buy them separately. That's over 30 titles for a mere $100, including books by Mary Ann Samyn, Jessica Bozek, Cati Porter, Britanny Ober, Nicole Steinberg, Rachel Mallino, and so many more..

weekly covet: picnic

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Last night I dreamed that someone was killing poets and dismembering them, including myself but also not myself since I was obviously watching it happen. I knew who it was, but was afraid to say. We kept hiding the bodies. Someone had plans to fix things apparently, to put us back together alive so no one was the wiser. In the meantime, everyone's various parts were thrown into a swimming pool which happened to be in my childhood bedroom. We were all swimming around on top of the water, fully aware and freaked out that our bodily, physical selves were sunk in pieces somewhere down in the murky depths. I had agreed to take care of the pool overnight, and to sleep, waterbed-like, on top of the water to keep us safe, which I did until I could feel the body parts beginning to decay, almost sighing as the air left them, and rising, arms and legs and torsos beneath me through the plastic sheeting I was laying on. Everyone was arguing in the hallway over what to do as the pieces, bleached from the water and bloated, began to surface, hands and heads and open mouths. It became terrifying at that point. I kept throwing sheets over the pool to cover them, but you could still make out the outlines. Needless to say, I woke up a little unsettled.

lazy sunday

weekend

Last night a storm blew through the city that rattled the ceiling tiles in the library and blew open the lobby doors from the inside out. I came outside to branches and debris scattered up Michigan Avenue and just a little rain. Later, leaving the studio, it was calm downtown and the streets filled with tourists like nothing had happened. Inevitably, though, I got caught in a downpour and scary lightning storm in the block and a half from the bus stop to my apartment so I was soaked by the time I got home. (Umbrellas are pretty much useless in the wind, and sometimes you just get wetter that way.) Today, however is a gorgeous mild 82. Weather is so unstable in June. You get these unbelievably hot, humid days followed by crazy ass storms in the PM like clockwork. I love thunderstorms, though they used to freak me out more in the country, all that flat open land around my parent's neighborhood. I was always worried about tornadoes, so much so that I dreamed about them all the time, even more frequently than the plane crashes.

I am hoping for a slow weekend with not all that much on the docket. Maybe some light housecleaning, then bad horror movies and chinese food later. I think my only weekend projects are some more flasks and maybe a jump start on some pressed flower bookmarks I've been wanting to make, as well as a few EMU's I bought home to sew. I am hoping to get the new round of chaps out this week, barring any future toner disasters.

fashion friday

summer by wickedpen featuring Armand Basi dresses

in the fantasy below, I would definitely have this dress and that couch/daybed on my porch...

secretly...

I sometimes want to live in a big old farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, two miles back from the closest road with a big wide porch that wraps all around with no people for acres. I'd have a passel of cats and other animals-goats, rabbits, and gardens full of wildflowers and herbs, all of which would miraculously tend themselves (I never promised this was a realistic fantasy)and leave me with time to read and write and create in the silence. Sometimes, it would rain, and I would be able to sit under the overhang of said porch and watch the lightning from a safe distance until it was dark. It would, of course, always be summer**, and the house would have a huge kitchen filled with food I would suddenly know how to cook, wood floors that were miraculously clean, floor to ceiling bookshelves overflowing with good books, and worn old velvet couches for lounging, napping, and having raucous sex while it thundered outside. Of course said partner(s) would go away the rest of time leave me to my writing and reading. Add in french doors and a clawfoot tub and I might not even need the sex.

I would also have many devoted friends and family, who, not put off by my constant telling them to go away, would show up promptly for dinner parties we'd have alfresco with delicious food, flowing alcohol, and stay up all night under a million stars you could actually see. There would be music, and laughing, and lanterns made from old ball jars and tea lights. Then, of course, they would leave and I could get back to work. Some afternoons I would spend on a blanket in the middle of a big old field eating fresh strawberries and day dreaming without getting bit by pesky insects, which just wouldn't exist outside the pretty ones like butterflies, honey bees, lightning bugs, and the occasional grasshopper.


**{what's funny is that I could never live in the country in the winter, which is why I am where I am....too much cabin-fever, bare trees, icy roads, barreness, and it get's way too dark way too early. I would go absolutely insane..I've always said my ideal life would involve country summers and city winters (or living beachfront somewhere where there isn't winter. Ever.) }.

Summer seems to be happening and it seems like I may quite possibly sleep through it entirely. I procured some high thread count sheets a couple of weeks ago and all I want to do is stay in bed. It has been rainy the past few days, although this morning was clear and bright with big puffy clouds and not as much dampness or humidity. I had a window seat lakeside on the bus, which put me in an unusual good mood and am wearing my favorite gray dress, but after a day in the library, that mood seems to fade for no particualr reason. There are caramel machiattos though, and yesterday, I finished a poem, which I hadn’t done in a long while. I want to go straight home tonight, since I am waiting on toner anyway , which means I can’t print any books. I have yet to put away the laundry I did late last week, so now everything will be wrinkled and I need to get it hung up before it ‘s covered with cat hair and needs to be washed again. I feel I need to be more accountable for my days, which seem to twirl by at breakneck speed. I never get as much done in a given week as I would like, and I seem to be perpetually about two weeks behind on every single thing. It doesn’t help that I keep falling off the wagon when it comes to certain relationships that need to be over. There are new possibilities, but I am still stuck in the groove of a very broken record. It’s no good.

weekly covet

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friday night

I am gearing up, once again, for another Open Studio (these things come around every month faster than I can be really ready for them). Still we have all sorts of new lovelies for perusing, and possibly a sneak peak of the three latest chapbooks, which will be making their debut very shortly...since I will be out of town those weekends and will miss the July and August dates, this will be the last one til September..so check it out!

weekly covet

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My biggest problem lately seems to be a lack of focus. Twice I have started a blog entry about writing and po-biz and abandoned it. I am almost on the verge of abandoning this one. Whatever I had to say didn't seem pressing, or sometimes even coherent. Sometimes, I was holding back saying how I really feel for the sake of not arguing about it, and in particular, not offending people I really do like, people who I respect immensely. But instead when it comes to poetry things, I will try to get along, go along, (or maybe just get the hell out of the way.)

In happier news, I am still working on the next batch of three chaps, but got waylaid by a lack of toner and now more copies of one of the books that requires sewing, so it's a little slow going. I hope to have them up by Friday after I can make the final corrections on two of them (the other is finished and already has a few copies out there.) Shop-wise, I am also working on some more vintage hairpins and headbands, as well as some coptic bound journals with the most gorgeous paper covers. Also maybe some pressed flower bookmarks and pendants I hope to be getting completed over the weekend...


Again, summer and there just doesn't seem like enough time since I come straight to work in the morning and only get a couple of studio hours before I have to head home. I definitely prefer working later since I have my mornings free, this in-between crap sucks immeasurably. I still feel like I have to get up early, but I'm coming home just as late at night. It doesn't help that the warm weather has went away temporarily and I'm feeling sluggish and partly cloudy.

weekly covet : summer

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I always get a little nostalgic for my childhood summers: camping, picnics, days out on my dad's fishing boat, cookouts, drive-in-movies, ferry rides, lake swimming. I spent alot of time as a kid each summer up in Wisonsin, usually either Black River Falls or the area around Lake Wisconsin and I hope to get up there again this summer. What's crazy is that very little has changed. Sure, there are some additions, a few more fast food joints and walmarts, but time moves very slow up there, not like Chicago where things can be transformed in weeks, or even Rockford, which seems different everytime I go back.

dgp open for submissions!!!

Starting today, dgp is officially open for submissions for the 2011 chapbook series through August.


guidelines

Manuscripts must be between 12 and 32 pages, numbered accordingly, with only one poem per page.

Submissions are accepted via e-mail as attachments in Microsoft word only. Please include "Chapbook Submission/LAST NAME" in your subject line.


Send all correspondence to dancinggirlpress@yahoo.com

For more information, go here.