Summer in The City - Knocked Down Loaded

This may be the longest gap in my daily reporting. Was Thursday the last?

I did the group therapy on Friday. Therapeutic value remains dim. I say what I have been doing for the time since the meeting. Well, anyone reading this knows how little excitement or variety there are in my reports.

The question that I have been asking for years is whether incarceration was supposed to press me into an intellectual amber.  Was I not to think about my life, and seek to correct my errors? Or is it that they think I suffer from a pathological condition that trumps any rational thought? Well, no proof of that. I am also certain that the counselor running the group has not contacted my solo counselor.

CC came over late on Friday. I had invited her for dinner, but not hearing from her, I went on and ate on my own. Then she showed up later. I fixed chicken breasts and pasta. She stayed until late, talking and eating.

But that late night turned into me not getting up until almost noon on Saturday. I went to work on Dad's stuff, dishwashing, and not sure much more. I made a trip to the convenience store for soda and smokes. Then I went off to Fedex, only to find out I had wasted my time. What I thought was the next-to-last bus was the last. Too far and too hot to walk home. Back on the computer until around 10. I had already made plans to stay home on Sunday. Dinner was leftover spaghetti.

CC worked her rummage sale Sunday and K did not have gas to come over. I did my laundry late in the afternoon. I was supposed to get at dad's stuff but the time went into submitting stories. I did that until Chrome crashed in the middle of doing this post. Submittable was so damned slow.

"Problem Solving" went to:

1. Storm Cellar
2. EPOCH
3. JuxtaProse Literary Magazine
4. Untoward Magazine
5. ServiceScape
6. Missouri Review
7. Colorado Review
8. ellipsis... literature & art
9. Gordon Square Review
10. Four Way Review
11. The Four-Faced Liar
12. The Forge Literary Magazine
13. The Iowa Review

"No Ordinary Word" went to:

1. carte blanche
2. The Emerson Review
3. riddlebird

""Road Tripping" went to Sunspot Lit.

About all I got to read was  The last of the Zoroastrians. I did not know they were around.

I listened to a bunch of Solomon Burke:

And that was my Sunday. Rejections will follow in the next few months.

Rejections received:

I guess the following is for "Walls and Lines" - which was submitted back on September 17, 2024.

 Thank you for submitting to Random Sample Review. We're grateful for your patience as we read through the many submissions we received for Issue 10; many of our readers took a break during this reading period, meaning we needed to take extra time and care in reading through everything.

The readers and editors were once again humbled by all of you who trusted your work with us and gave us the chance to read your wonderful words!

With that said, we must pass on your submission at this time, but we hope you'll consider Random Sample Review again in the future.

We wish you the best of luck in placing your work elsewhere. Take care.

Sincerely,

Editors of Random Sample Review

This submission was of a more recent vintage:

Thank you for sending us "No Ordinary Word". We appreciate the chance to read it but we won't be able to publish it at this time. We hope you will submit other works. Thanks for supporting the Indiana Writers Center.

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

David Hassler

Flying Island Literary Journal

No relation, David's got an extra "s".

 "Problem Solving" took 36 days to be rejected:

We at The Rumen wanted to thank you for submitting your work to our fledgling publication. It is always an honor to read these

submissions, and in an era with so many online journals we appreciate you taking the time to share your work with us. And though we do not feel your story is quite what we are looking for at this time we trust that it will find a home elsewhere. Note that our selection process is very subjective, and that this rejection is not a mark against the quality of your writing.

Thank you once again, and good luck with future submissions!

-James Cole

Trump keeps sounding nuts. Kamala is on the rise. Things feel better. 

I need to shave and get ready for work.

 Another warm day. I found out yesterday the heat is leaving me light-headed.

sch