What an Exciting Morning!

I have had a really nice morning after a terrible two days: I was worrying about my defense, sleepless nights and all, but have decided to not worry about it, because I will not perish from it and even if I fail (worst and really, most unlikely scenario), I can always come back next semester and do it again; it's not like I have job offers dependent on my degree. Plus, I would get to see my friends!

So, this morning! I was looking at my friend Jackie's pictures on myspace, and came across a picture of Jackie in a bathroom somewhere in Chicago. In the foreground there is a flyer for a flash fiction lit mag called The Green Flash. This is exciting to me, a tiny new lit mag in Chicago all about flash fiction! For those of you who don't know, most of my manuscript was prose poems, which are just the more disjointed sibling of flash fiction. So I google The Green Flash and the only thing that comes up is a link to a blurb about a release party on the north side, but it also contains the names of the editors, Molly Tolsky and Ryan Duke.

It is at this point it occurs to me that I have come across Molly before. I recently read one of her stories in the online lit journal Pindeldyboz called "Stub." So this morning I sent Molly an email (her address is on the Pindeldyboz site) telling her about how I found her, her writing, The Green Flash. This is kinda neat and a nice thing to happen to me today, after all my worrying about my defense, because oh, I've just been really doubting my writing abilities and wondering how I might go about finding some writer friends when I move home. Molly may never answer my email, but it gave me hope when I needed it, and that is all I ask for, a little thread to hold onto when I'm down.

It also makes me rethink giving up on prose poetry. I haven't written any since finishing my manuscript, and this experience makes me want to revisit the form again. Not that I had given up on it forever, I just sorta turned my back on it after the whole cancer thing, like I couldn't look at prose poetry because that was all I was writing when I found out. It might be too early to go back in there, but really, it's not prose poetry's fault: it didn't give me cancer!

In any event, I've had a nice morning so here is a recent pic and a fun poem I wrote last week for my cat Violet who turned three on April 28th. Happy birthday Mrs. Beauregard!

Of Lost Whiskers and Fortuitous Assignations

Yesterday was my cat’s birthday.
All cats have questionable births:
On a lawn chair, under a bridge,

During the playoffs. Violet born
Behind a garbage can, her feral
Yowls interrupted by interactions

Of animals taller than her busy looking
For a place to resemble the nonchalant
Or drink coffee. Violet released from

The womb still in her amniotic sac—
The rough pressure of her mother’s
Tongue flushed her out, started

Respiration for a matted gelled mass.
I watch Violet lap water into her mouth,
Think of that thin membrane between

Water and air, between the harsh nature of
Survival and the tender love we ascribe to it.