It's the kind of life that will get ya in the rubber room!
Yesterday - Monday - seems almost forgotten - I spent most of it revising "Coming Home", which is part of "Road Tripping". I tried a flash fiction thing, too. There were emails deleted, read, sent.
I went to this month's meeting of Muncie Resists. I wonder if we are really ready for what may come.
Then I went to see "Good Fortune". I liked it, but must admit it is different. Very slow moving opening depending on Aziz Ansari (also writer and director). But it keeps building up steam - as a black comedy that is also very gentle. Keanu Reeves comes across as an autistic angel - until he loses his wings. Seth Rogan is a bull in the china shop - and with him losing his place in the world amps up the film. Yes, it is worth watching - I never considered what I spent on the movie, and that is my fatal criteria. There is also another key player in the film - more so than Reeves and Rogen, maybe - that is Keke Palmer. I do not recognize the name and the face meant nothing to me. I think if you watch carefully, she is the hub around which the film moves; the person with the most faith, and it is very much a movie of faith and hope.
(And to my embarrassment, I did see Keke Palmer in Akeelah and the Bee (2006), but I have been through a few things in the past 19 years, so forgive my lapse of memory.)
I also saw my first electrical charging system in the AMC parking lot.
I was up late last night, which probably is what caused today's problems.
The (Tuesday) morning went well, even if I did not want to get up. I went to work on making submissions. About 12:30, my eyes felt burnt out, so I laid down to rest them. Only that took two hours out of my life, not just one. It seems that by afternoon, I have sinus problems. It left me groggy and slow. I had expected CC to call, and she did - finally. Having talked her into letting me help her apply for SSI, I went to get her. I had talked to an attorney and had instructions and a phone number. She called while I went into Payless. We came back here. I fixed dinner for her while she sent me photos of the last apartment to me and perused some of my books. I got her home around dark. About an hour after she left, I found out how much I had screwed up the day.
I submitted several times a story without pagination. Too many files with the same name, I guess. Feel utterly useless right now. Even though, I spent the past 3 hours sending messages about the problem to some of the magazines and resubmitting to two others.
That brings me up to this moment.
Monday's items:
The Left Shoe First – A Drama Short Story by Sonia Yousaf (Reedsy Prompts) - a story I really like.
The blade leans patiently against the nightstand. Sometimes the rain still carries the ghost-smell of rubber and smoke, the scent of the crash baked into the weather. I listen first: rain drumming like a crowd that forgot my name. Then I reached. Fingers find cold carbon, the faint notch I carved years ago. Superstition. Proof. I seat the limb. The lock answers, sharp and final. Balance returns in small negotiations: flesh to steel, steel to floor, socket tugging skin already tender: like a language I once spoke fluently and now must translate back to myself.
***
In the dark bathroom, lightning cuts me into parts: scar, cheek, the blur where the leg ends. I press my palm to the glass as if the surface could give something back. For a heartbeat, the flash returns a different man. Shoulders square, both legs under him, the face from photographs.
The light leaves. So do I.
Wind rattles the pane. The hum grows until it’s all there is. I lift a crutch and throw. Glass answers: sharp rain, trophies tumbling, a photo frame splitting at the seam. Then nothing but breath, rough in, rough out. The room is the same size and somehow smaller. Dust from shattered frames clings to the sweat on my forearms, tiny stars I can’t shake off.
***
In the mirror I meet the man who carries me. He isn’t the boy I was, or the hero people clap for. He’s a work in progress. I touch the seam where skin meets socket, not as a bargain, but as a greeting.
Outside, rain starts again. I tie my shoes without looking: sometimes left first, sometimes right, and step out into a world that keeps making room.
It still isn’t grace. But this time, it’s enough.
Digging Deep, The Robert Plant Podcast
Crazy things you don't know about Indiana
A rejection:
Thank you for sending us "Desperate Men Committing Desperate Acts." We appreciate the chance to read your work, and we thank you for your patience as you awaited our reply. Unfortunately, this submission is not right for our next few issues.We wish you the best of luck, and thank you for thinking of Denver Quarterly!Sincerely,Denver Quarterly Editors
Song for Monday:
10/28
Working on my submissions!
Thank you for sending us your work. We appreciate the opportunity to read it. While we will not be publishing this one, our decision is not indicative of its quality by any means. These things are highly subjective, as you know.
Thanks again for thinking of us.
Sincerely,
Danny Judge | EditorWallstrait
Though they are often synonymous, one could substitute “theocrats” for “gangsters” in Chandler’s declaration. While clerical bigots and bullies acquire more power in the world we live in, Honey Don’t is a joyful, genre-informed, and edgy reminder of the imperative for modern knights, riding across an increasingly dangerous terrain, searching for the truth.
We All Make Deals With the Devil: Five Mysteries that Feature Faustian Bargains (Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Crime Reads)
Bob Dylan’s Superpower is That He Doesn’t Get Embarrassed (Literary Hub)
"Coming Home" went to The Rumen, Tir Literary Magazine, On The Premises; and resubmitted to Grist, and Necessary Fiction.
The song for Tuesday:
Tomorrow, a vacation from retirement!
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