would you look at that

Would you look at that. As soon as I stepped away from this space, I had things I thought I might want to say here. Mainly, because I am the biggest narcissist of all time possess a healthy ego, I missed my own voice.

I don't journal, so this little blog and some Gmails to two grad school friends serve as my biography. As the years have gone by, and we three find ourselves busy in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Georgia with our full-time jobs and local lives, the Gmailing has slowed down. Turns out I miss writing to my friends. I missed writing here.

Summer 2014 was a good one, though pretty work-oriented. There were a couple conferences, and an online course, and I agreed to freelance for my department and fix our janky-ass update our web site. Friends bought a house in Florida. Other friends bought a house in town with a pool. The B holed up and revised three hundred thousands words of a novel-in-progress. I carved out just enough time to turn some new poems--and salvaged parts of Dear Stupid--into a new manuscript.

Now it's September, and there are six classes and lots of committee work on the schedule ahead, and summer feels like a long time ago.

What else is new:

Work is up here and here and here.

There are job openings at our school. In May, we'll find out whether we live here for a long time or take off for someplace new. I'm rooting for the former. Georgia has her claws in me these days. Still, if it's the latter, I feel like we can handle it. There are benefits to being in my thirties.

Current projects: an essay drawing comparisons between Pablo Escobar's hippos and a Wisconsin lion story my father-in-law told me two years ago. A game of telephone I'm playing with my Canadian visual artist friend. A chapbook about doomed explorers.

Thai basil won the garden this year. No bugs eat it and it donates itself gladly to this awesomely easy weeknight dinner. It's the steady middle child of the garden, not requiring any attention, just quietly succeeding at life.

I didn't get to the photo albums this summer, but I did order the prints. The Snapfish art deco prints (above) are velvety smooth and worth all the pennies they cost.

This weekend was what all should be: a soccer tailgate with friends on Friday night; a pool party and kebabs on Saturday; a lazy Sunday with new nonfiction and roast pork and a nap on the couch. Now the thunderstorm is roiling overhead and the dog is whimpering in his red-and-white bandana.

Here's another fork. See you around.