5 things

There are five things I want to tell you:

1. I start my new job as a dispatcher today. I'll work from 3 to 11pm this first month (and after that I'm likely to get the overnight shift). I'm told that this first week I'll sit in a comfortable chair and observe the others. That's 40 paid hours of sitting and watching. This is a good job. I am a bit anxious, but they really seem to be big on easing the newbies in slowly.

2. I'm getting a haircut today at Cost Cutters by a very nice woman named Lonnie. I want to look sharp for my first day, and Lonnie has an eye for sharp.

3. I'm missing the Winter Wheat festival at Bowling Green in Ohio this year, for obvious reasons. I've been the past 3 years as both a participant and presenter. It's a good time and I have met so many good people/writers. I'm bummed out because Dara Wier, one of my favorite poets, is going to be there.

4. The very talented Heidi Lynn Staples took some of my poems for her magazine Parakeet. This will now be the fifth magazine named after a bird that I've be published in (Kestrel, Peregrine, The Canary, and Ducky). I'm having a string of good luck--let's hope it carries into the manuscript department. Lots of killer competition out there.

5. The new sixth issue of Pettycoat Relaxer has one of my poems in it, and some really rad stuff from Michael Schiavo, Clayton Couch, Eileen Tabios, and Jess Mynes. Apparently, PR is the new disco of poetry.