Editing Day

This is what I'm doing today. (I sadly do not own this mug, but probably should.)

I have a deadline tomorrow evening. And it's a deadline that nobody other than me would even know about if I did not say, "I have a deadline," because in the grand scheme of things, it affects no one other than me. I either submit the thing or I do not. After dancing around this for several days, I think I will submit the thing.

But the thing I have decided to submit is not at all the thing I thought I was going to submit in the first place. This is largely because of the aforementioned figurative dancing, wondering whether or not I was actually going to submit the thing. So now it's a different thing. It's a different thing to submit to the same place.

The fact that I am writing this blog entry about the thing rather than working on the thing should not be seen as destructive as I, in fact, needed a palate-cleanser before going from the first thing into the second thing. Like a cup of tea. Tea or something similar in a mug that I own, but does not resemble the mug in the photograph, except perhaps in use. I am done now with my palate-cleansing. As you were.

It's a wonder I get anything done at all.

valentine

what if I move the bed 

and make room for you

and throw out all the underpins with holes and things unraveling

what if I fix the drawers that have long gone off their tracks

and buy new sheets

and turn the goddamned mattress

what if I vacuum

and peer beneath the box springs

to find who-even-knows what

something I’d forgotten

something I’d thought I’d lost

what if I throw wide the curtains 

and let in enough light so that you can see

me in all my hideous imagined disfigurement

if I moved my pile of clothes from the chair

to make room for yours

would you still want this   still want me   

would you forgive the remnants of past lives

and scars from old loves

and my ineffective housekeeping

what if I move the bed

and break up all my patterns

what if I’m unable to sleep

© AL Pearsall, 2015

Amtrak Residency for Writers

It's been a big week over here in terms of applying for artistic residencies. One of my favorites in the stack: the application for #AmtrakResidency. If you're a fellow writer, you can apply, too. Here's to riding the rails and getting stuff done.

tip of the iceberg

Uptown Manhattan: There are a couple of spots left for Danielle Lazarin's eight-week fiction class that kicks off on February 5, 2014 at Inwood's own Bread and Yoga. Her work last appeared in the literary magazine Glimmer Train, and she's kind of awesome. Get in there, and tell her I sent you.