Elm Leaves Journal

Sometimes life is so crazy it looks like a dog with a cigar

I thought March was spectacular and then April came around. Sure, I had another birthday, which is fine, I guess, but eh the “aging” bit could go. I did receive amazing gifts of love through words, deeds, FB posts, flowers, and even presents. Thank you all and here is the picture of the cake I honestly would have shared with you had you dropped in at the time:

The 5th had me in Buffalo for a workshop where I had the opportunity to reconnect with members of my old writing group that met in Hamburg at the Comfort Zone and pitched the novel I’m rewriting to an agent. She gave me her card and told me to query her when it was done, so in the parlance of that structure, it was a victory. I’d no more than spun around and it was time for the solar eclipse. We did it up in style.

Friends from Chicago arrived and we had dinner with them and the amazing Tuttle clan. Friday, the 12th, thankyouthankyou Kim Chinquee hosted the Elm Leaves Eclipse Launch where not only was I listed as special guest and ELJ Contributor on the posters, I read with her talented students, but also with Rachel L. Johnson and Justin Karcher. Seriously, if you know anything about the Buffalo Lit scene, you know reading with Justin is a Buffalo bucket list must do and I did it. Thank you to everyone who was a part of the launch! AND my niece Ashley showed up  – as well as the couple from Chicago as a surprise, which it truly was, Thank you Robert and Theresa. Because of Kim, there are pictures of this incredible event. Thank you!

Thank you Kim also for another wondrous Drop Hammer. This month, it was Nancy McCabe. I’ve got her, “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” on my to be read pile. After she read from new work, there was discussion and food. Carol – and I’m sorry I don’t recall her last name – led us to a gallery in the AKG open to the public. Before and After Again, the current exhibit of artwork, prose, and poetry by the Buffalo-based Julia Bottoms, Tiffany Gaines, and Jillian Hanesworth is incredible. The depth of the portraits and the food images, as well as the prose and hope in the seeds – a truly moving tribute to those lost, but also to those who still live in the area of the Tops shooting and the tentacles of how food deserts compound misery.

I don’t know if any of that is right, art is subjective after all, and I really liked this lamp made by Henry.

That was another experience I was graced to experience. I’d gotten an acceptance at Litmora, which led to my trying to work that in at the launch, and there was an invitation by the editor to attend the Fredonia Literary Festival, and so I did. Completely interesting and fun, plus it turned out that both Henry and Tabi are from Springville. How cool is that? It’s even cooler because Tabi (moderator in the first pic) also has ties to the town where my grandmother lived.

I’m grateful to be here. Western NY is such a lovely spot filled with great souls and flash writers like Rina Fosati. When I went to visit her, I came across a free lawnmower that Husband is falling in love with more with each pull of the cord. I am blessed beyond measure and if you’re reading this, you are the part of the wonder in this universe. Thank you for being that.

Thank you for stopping by and for the read ❤ Enjoy your May!

Boldly seeing in the new year with a gorilla on the bookcase and a cat

31 December 2023 ~ 7:00p.m. as I type. It’s strange to be sitting here with a ton of gratitude and good cheer while heavy with inertia. Maybe it was all the decorating/package sending/cookie making/letter writing/card addressing, stamping, and mailing after accomplishing 50,000 words written in NaNoWriMo and nearly managing a flash a day on top of that just the month before. I apologize there’s not as much effort as I’d like to put in here present, but as someone wrote, “If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing crappily.” I can’t remember where I heard that line – and I’m sure it was said with more elegance and grace – but it’s been an idea I’ve paired with St. Francis of Assisi’s “Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible,” only to find it led to doing impossibly stupid things, so that is tiring me out, too.

(Off topic: Every time I write a breathless paragraph, I think of Kathy Fish. Maybe that’s how angels get their wings now.)(And really, it wasn’t that off topic. It’s A Wonderful Life has been playing in a loop all month.)(Talk about loopy, my thoughts go in circles sometimes. Do yours?)(Where was I? Oh. Right.)

With overnight company over the holiday, I had the chance to pull furniture out of the library, clean, and rearrange it. I hit upon a new configuration. That lasted a day or two before the shortcomings of orientating the mat one way and the chair in another reemerged. I switched it all back the way I had it this afternoon and noticed I should touch up the paint on the walls.

Pedestrian and predictable, isn’t it? Ruts…yet I dare say I feel a hint of hope about the upcoming new year. Maybe it’s the scent of a business idea or a political run. I don’t know what will happen next and neither do you, so in the meantime let me once again say thank you to the amazing readers and editors at these places who were wonderful enough to enjoy my work enough to share it:

I’m grateful to a long list of IRL people who made the year amazing, and I hope you’ll forgive my not naming your name and linking your page but I want to finish a book (reading) before midnight if I can, and chances are, you know who you are, including the awesome ones behind this:

I know, I probably owe you a letter/critique response/present that didn’t get packed, but it’ll have to wait. The gorilla on the bookcase is ready for a rockin’ eve and I’m off to finish reading a paltry tenth book for 2023. See you in the new year if we’re all lucky that way. Thank you for your love, your support, your kind words and likes if you gave them. Thank you for existing. Thank you stopping by and for the read.