Rain and more rain outside, but it's cozy and warm in here. Actually it's not that cold outside, just wet.
I'm up, drinking my coffee, breakfast eaten, and all dressed for the day. Lots to do, as always: essay-writing, reading these books I need to endorse, reading poetry submissions, tying off my fiction-manuscript revisions so that I can send it in tomorrow. I've just said yes to a book review with a relatively tight turnaround (considering that I don't have my review copy of the book yet), which will be fun to do, if a little nail-biting --- but when people offer you work, to be remunerated in actual cash money, what are you gonna do? And this is one of my all-time favorite editors, for whom I really love working, so I'd have to be in a seriously hard place to turn him down.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Audrey dress (S) in Black Heather, bought November 2022
*Thrifted green lyocell/tencel button shirt (the label is "Wonderly"), bought December 2023
*Snag merino tights in Silver Lining, worn feet cut off by me, bought fall 2021 (and just about done, I have to say)
*Darn Tough Socks, bought summer 2023
*Xero Tari boots, bought summer 2022
Versatile Audrey, such a great dark-neutral dress. Here she's more or less a long dark skirt with my green shirt. I suppose if I were going for body-consciousness, this outfit would not be doing it, but truly I care not. I could belt it at the waist, mind you. In fact, I tried that.
And you know, whatever, that's nice in a kind of Jane-Goodall-vibe way (and I like the Jane-Goodall vibe as a vibe), but I really wasn't feeling it. Anyway, I'm not going anywhere until tonight, which is our pub night. If I feel like tweaking the outfit to go out, then I will. If I don't, then I won't.
I did add my alpaca cardigan on top, because although it's not really cold, the house feels a little dank. So now what I have going on, I fear, are Elizabeth-Jennings vibes.
I revere Elizabeth Jennings as a poet, though her oeuvre is so enormous as to be very uneven --- nobody could write that much and always, or even often, write at the top of her form. Her vibe, and in fact her life itself, was that of a person whose friends continually had to intervene, to save her from herself. That's not quite the image I want to go for.
On the other hand, I want to be warm, so here we are. And now I have stuff to do. I had better get up out this chair and do it.
LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
*finished an essay on Edward Lear
*began an essay on Flannery O'Connor
*walked the dog briefly in the rain
*started the dishwasher
*resigned from the New York Sun
Yes, it's true. My colleague and I have written our valedictory Poem of the Day column (sorry once again about the paywall) --- but we're not mourning. Instead, we're . . . how shall I say it? . . . working on something. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, my fiction publisher has asked me to call him, because there's something he wants to discuss with me. My mind immediately defaults to catastrophizing, but he assures me it's all good news. So I'm going to eat some lunch here, then find out what it is.
Also watching the birds at my feeder: so far a lot of chickadees and cedar waxwings, both such lovely, tidy-looking winter birds. I especially love cedar waxwings in their smooth gray and taupe, just tone-on-tone classiness, never a feather out of place. Squirrels have been hitting the seed feeder as well, and I wish I could throw rocks at them --- not to hurt them, just to scare them away. It's one thing to feed birds, but squirrels are a whole other level of budget line item.
LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE:
*Have had the phone call with the publisher. It was good and interesting and more will be revealed.
*Worked out: wall-pilates glutes today. I am really liking these workouts in the Reverse app --- they're manageable and not defeatingly difficult (granted, I was kind of active anyway and had been lifting little weights, etc, for some time, but still), BUT I feel them afterwards. I like having a 30-day sequence that takes me through arms, legs, glutes, core, and whole-body stretching --- I can just repeat it month after month, which will be cool. There are options for upping the difficulty, like adding a resistance band or some weights, which I have done a little, but will do more as time goes on and I revisit the sets multiple times. I do skip days here and there and usually take a break on the weekends, so "30 days" works out actually to longer than a month, but that's okay. It's a nice cycle, and I'll happily keep doing it.
*began an essay on Thomas Hardy, but I think I'm kind of clocked out for the day. Looking forward to pub night!
EVENING UPDATE:
Waiting for the husband to arrive so that we can sashay off and into the pub.
I did decide to change up the look, as you see. Sure am glad I retrieved that cardigan out of the for-sale box.
*Same dress I've been wearing all day
*Same tights, socks, and boots I've been wearing all day
*Secondhand Brooks Brothers pink merino cardigan, bought November, I think, 2023.
*Silk scarf given to me by my mother in . . . 2004? I can remember wearing it in New York in the fall of 2005, so I think she must have given it to me for my birthday or Christmas the previous fall/winter. Anyway, I've had it a long dang time, and I still like it.
Here is the self-satisfied face of a person who has written one whole essay, drafted almost a whole other, begun a third, had multiple phone conversations, and received a rather lovely check in the mail, money she earned her ownself by the sweat of her pen. Oh, and she's also pretty much memorized that Auden poem. Now she's ready to eat a Cuban sandwich and drink a beer.