I’m on vacation. I’m actually doing some work while I’m on vacation, but not a whole lot. Nope, not a lot at all. I did find an old story in one of my notebooks that I’d started and stopped a couple/few times. I took it out and wrote it to submit as my final Whittaker story. The results aren’t out yet, but I’m happy. I met all my deadlines except one, and that one was a result of a brain fart about time zones (I was out at the time I should have been emailing my poem to beat the deadline). So yay!

I’ll definitely do the Whittakers again next year. Deadlines are win when it comes to productivity for me, apparently. I got several good pieces out of this year’s and that makes me very happy. Shame my brain doesn’t assign the same degree of importance to deadlines I give myself which don’t affect anyone else… Maybe someday.

~*~

I made a newsletter and went to send it out, but then I found that I couldn’t quite do it. Why? Well, lemme tell you.

The newsletter had a zombie poem and included a retelling of an incident that happened to my family and I when we were in San Francisco. That incident involved a very angry man wearing woman’s clothes stomping around a McDonald’s and shouting at everyone in there that we were “all a bunch of faggots”. It was so bizarre that I filed that man away to be used as a character at some point, and Jo called me on it after we left the McDonalds. So why not share it?

I find that I’m incredibly uncomfortable sharing it, actually. I define myself as ‘mostly straight’ but I haven’t a homophobic bone in my body. Still, I can’t bring myself to share that story in its entirety because I’ve learned that it’s impossible to overestimate people’s ability to misconstrue your words. I’m SO not looking for that to happen.

Hopefully I can find another short worth sharing and send out the newsletter before the end of the month is completely over. Wish me luck!