My second full month in my new job is coming to a close. This morning I’m tasked with making breakfasts and lunches for my people and will of course get doing dishes and scooping litter boxes. And I’ll be working on the lit mag some. And hopefully finding time to read and write outside of this routine treadmill time.

It’s Monday and the last day of the month and I’m not missing my old job one bit. I had the best weekend and now get to start a new week full of promise and poetry.

I’ve got a fair bit to get done today as it’s the last day of the month—tasks I’ve been procrastinating that are due today. Mostly stuff for the GLR and I need to try and stay focused on that and not log into my personal Submittable account because that will inevitably lead to hours of research, revision, letter writing and I just don’t have time for that today. I need to stay focussed.

I should be satisfied with November. I mean, I am satisfied. I managed to bump myself up to 75 open subs despite the rejections and as I said yesterday, can cruise through December holding that line.

Amidst those rejections are a few more acceptances. Gyroscope Review, Local Honey, and Vital Sparks to name a few. Plus, my poem “Covid Sunset” was in the top 10 for a contest put on by Wingless Dreamer for their “Fruits of our Quarantine” collection. That’s awesome sauce. That’s an actual printed book which I somehow appreciate more than the bits and bytes that are online only. Even though Kate says online is where it’s at now, I like having a physical book I can hold, thumb through, dog-ear, and see on my shelf.

So far my experience with these publications leads me to believe that the GLR is doing a good job with communication. To be fair, most places that are accepting my work are just as new. Gyroscope Review might be the exception to that rule, but a few seem so new that there’s not a lot to see on their websites. Vital Sparks appears to be a basic placeholder for future content. With no info and no aesthetic, it makes me wonder what I was thinking sending my baby there.

And not just any baby but one of my favorites. Perhaps it’s for the best. As it is one of my favorites, I have no idea if it’s a good poem or not. More than a year, and 10 revisions old now and I still can’t tell. I’ve offered this baby to lots of places and this brand new lit mag was the one that snatched it up. How will they present my baby to the world? It remains to be seen.

I wonder if I should Pay more attention to social media. Maybe this is where the action is happening—the promo, the big-news. I might need to spend some time researching that. But not today.

Not today. Not today. Not today.

I have to keep telling myself this so I don’t get distracted. I have other work to do.

Yes, I seem to be taking nicely to my new role. I enjoy tending to my healthy household and look forward to my son returning this week from his quarantine. I’ll have all the Christmas decorations out of storage by then and we’ll be set for a bit of a traditional tree-trimming party next weekend. This would normally be the weekend after thanksgiving but the Covid kind of effffed that up too.

Pretty soon now we’ll have a vaccine but I’m still not making any plans. Not booking airline tickets or entertaining ideas about field trips or road trips or one-year anniversary vacations. Other people are doing this for me as I refuse to hope for one more damn thing.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Nope. I’m setting my expectations dangerously low and that way I can’t be disappointed. I’ll just keep trucking with all these semi-isolated days, enjoying all the good things that I have right here in the comfort of my own home.

Like walking on my treadmill, cooking for my crew, and scheming about how to protect our outside guests from the brutality a Nebraska winter, which appears to have arrived overnight.

We woke today to a bitter 18 degrees and both black cats were creeping the back yard. Puffy was clearly hungry and though he/she ran away when I went to fill the food dish, she/he came right back and had a really healthy snack. That’s when the topic of constructing some sort of shelter came up again. Nothing store bought mind you as we’ve spend enough money on the inside cats. 

No, we’re talking cardboard, leftover insulation and plastic. Jim even mentioned tubing that could be constructed to funnel vent heat into whatever shelter we decide upon. All with no guarantee that these strays will be interested in such a home. Heck, they probably already have several homes. But it does get really cold and if there is something we can do to help protect them, we want to do that. But not today. 

Not today. Not today. Not today. 

Oh boy, I’m headed for trouble. 

Cheers to Taking Bows and Tying Bows,
~Miss SugarCookie