April 29: Lots to Do, Sisyphean Task, "Rye" Dip Monday

Where's the chocolate room?

 I feel like Gene Wilder at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  I find myself walking around this morning, muttering, "So much time, and so little to do!  Strike that, reverse it."

I have to finish the final edits on my chapbook and get that in the mail.  I know I don't stand a chance, but it's nice to have the hope of publication for a little while.  I have two poems that need a little more tweaking.  Aside from that, I just need to format it, slip it in an envelope, and send it on its way.  I've been living with some of the poems in this little collection for over ten years.  It's time to let them go.

Then I have final exams to grade.  Lots of them.  That is the Sisyphean task preoccupying me today.  That and how sore I am from yesterday afternoon's run.  It's a good sore, though.  It's my body saying, "Oh, yeah, that's what that muscle does!"

Then there's my normal, daily work.  Phones.  Charts. Surgical schedules.  More phones.  Yes, I will be busy today.  Busier than I really want to be.  However, it's on days like this that I'm able to accomplish the most.  To paraphrase from another famous movie character (Dory from Finding Nemo), I "just keep working, just keep working, just keep working."

Today is a Rye dip day.  I haven't really given much thought to any question plaguing my mind at the moment.  I mean, there's the standard questions that are always present:

• Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?
• Will I get a full-time job at the university?
• Will we have enough money to make it through the summer?
• Will Hannah end up with Adam on Girls?

Maybe I'll just go totally off-the-wall this morning and ask a new question that has nothing to do with publishing or money or teaching or any of my normal obsessions.  Here goes:

Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?

OK, I have a one-track mind.  I admit it.  Let's see if Holden is going to actually answer me today.  Flipping through pages.  Flipping.  Flipping.  And the answer is:

Anyway, we danced about four numbers, and then I turned off the radio.  Old Phoebe jumped back in bed and got under the covers.  "I'm improving, aren't I?" she asked me.

So there you have it.  I'm improving.  That means I've improved enough as a poet to win this contest.  (If it seems like I'm pulling that answer out of my ass, I am.  I was determined to get a positive response this morning.)  That contest is in the bank.  Every other entrant might as well send me congratulatory wishes right now.

Saint Marty would like to thank the members of the Academy...