I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more interesting blog title. It’s been a little bit crazy around here. We switched to a night schedule to optimize my writing schedule, my husband was randomly shot with a pellet gun, and my son went to the ER and came back with a positive COVID test. I look forward to going back to boring writer life. This will be happening as soon as I post these updates.
Schedule Reversal: Thursday we decided to swap our schedules back to nocturnal so I could get some work done during the quiet hours. Since Ryan works until midnight anyway, it worked for both of us. Now I wake up and all my messages are waiting for me rather than tricling through all day and distracting me.
Random Ryan Shooting: While the staying up all night went well, the second morning my husband was randomly shot in the park with a pellet rifle. The pellet embedded in his forearm about two inches. An inch higher and it would have been in his abdomen. It could have also hit bone or done nerve damage. We were lucky.
I tracked down who did it and we got a hold of some video, posted below. The first shots you hear were my husband being shot. Then you see the shooter step into view and shoot another man whom I’m pretty sure is part of our local homeless population. Yes, this has been reported. This is a TikTok trend all over the country. Everyone take care and stay aware! Read about the TikTok trend here.
And here’s the COVID: And just when we were thinking COVID might be a thing of the past, my adult son went to the ER last night and came home with a positive COVID test. So far we are all asymptomatic, which makes me wonder if I’ve had COVID before and not known it or will we get hit again in a few days. Getting losts of rest and taking our Vitamin D like always.
Poetry Postcard Fest: This has kept me sane. I signed up to send 31 postcards (+an extra one) with original poetry and decided to make my own postcards. I feel like I’ve posted about neurographic drawing (or neurographica) before. It’s art meditation. I’m decorating all my postcards with my neurographica. Find out more about the Poetry Postcard Fest here: https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org
Back to Inujini: Remember how I was cooking along on Inujini? I haven’t written a word since July 1. I attended a presentation on the Battle of Okinawa and read The Girl with the White Flag by Tomiko Higa. I’ve been processing since. Earlier tonight it all clicked and I’ll be able to push through this to the end, probably still by my deadline of August 4. I did the same thing with Tortured Willows. I spent a moth “processing” and then I could suddenly get it all out.
There have been quite a few distractions the past two weeks, but I’ve managed to cut through them so I can return to Inujini. This next week is glorious and clear so I can stack up that word count ahead of Camp Necon.
I have two meetings, a friend’s book signing this Saturday (A Three-Letter Name by Annie Lisenby) and this Sunday at 2 pm CST is Instagram Poetry Live with fellow poet friend Amy Zoellers. You can watch for that on her IG channel here: hipness_and_outrage.
Now, for that shooting video I promised: