--DON'T WORRY, ONE OF THESE DAYS I'll MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION

 
…I’m dog-sitting this week for my daughter.  Zooey looks like a cross between a deer and a fox.  She’s quite cute, but she’s my daughter’s dog and won’t hang with me in my office, so I have to constantly check on her to make sure she’s not shredding something in the house.
I hope to get my own dog in spring.

…What have you got planned this week?

…Come the New Year, I aim to get back to reading steadily, something I’ve failed to do these last few months.  I think that’s part of the reason my writing has faltered of late.

…I did have this piece published at Collective Exile:

http://collectiveexile.com/price-of-gold/

…And also this poem, at Red Booth Review, which is also one of the poems I read on a radio show back east:

The Sweater

I am the black

Sweater
You left behind
On the love seat
Love no longer an option
Love seat
Love

My yarn is tight

Fine Egyptian cotton
Mercerized
Top stitched and fully-fashioned.
Your skin
It used to sit or swish
Inside of me
Against my limbs and lengths
My sleeves and being

You took me places

Folded me
Kept me clean
Now I am a heap of yarn
Dead threads
Smelling of your perfume
But mostly
Reeking rust and
Regret

…I hope you have a fantastic week.

…Here are a few things to consider:

"What the dead don't know piles up, though we don't notice at first." Roger Angell

"The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart-- this you will build your life by, and this you will become." James Lane Allen

"Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young." A.W. Pinero

"You won't believe the most amazing things can come from some terrible lies." ~Fun, "Some Nights"

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

"There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good." Tillotson