Moving into a New Phase/Poetry Reading/Bucket List

It's getting greener every day here, and a couple mornings ago we had not one, not two, but three moose in our yard! Unfortunately I couldn't get them all in a single shot, but it was cool to see.

Poetry Performance

Since my previous post, I performed in this event: 

--last night, I shared two poems with "bird" themes as part of this event, itself a part of the annual Shorebird Festival here in town, the subject of that newspaper article a couple weeks ago. I was sorry not to have had time to memorize my poems, but another thing I did since my last post was turn in grades, so I'm now officially done teaching for the term! I did have the poems mostly from memory, and was in eye contact with the audience, as I prefer to be, for the majority of the time. It was a wonderful event, with some great music and many beloved local poets sharing.


We saw some sandhill cranes on a back road recently. They are so...arresting.

yes, still plenty of snow higher up

Plans and Writing

Since last posting, I've also finally made my bucket list--actually written down all the things I'd been hoping to get done when the semester was over! 

Lots of room to add more details!

Writing is top of the list, followed by reading, followed by outdoor things. Of course, I never stopped either writing or reading, but I'm so happy I'll have more time to attend to those drafts that are crying out to me like babies. I think it was admirable restraint that I didn't put "cleaning" and "taxes" top of the list--those are things I really haven't gotten to that have really bugged me! Soon...


I've also had a wonderful conversation with my mentor, soon-no-longer-to-be-my-mentor, about which authors I might want to be reading for the months until the MFA residency in August. It feels great to have the promise of some structure as I continue to develop as a writer.

Food

I've been enjoying nettles every day, including in puddings like this, made with the immersion blender from unsweetened almond milk, warrior protein powder, xanthan gum to make it puddingy, and stevia.

As you can see, the immersion blender doesn't completely pulverize the greens, and I like that there's still texture to chew on. I imagine it's sort of like oatmeal, but way healthier.


Since we're talking about food, a quick revisit of my talk about increasing calories last time. I appreciate the comments and responses; I even appreciate the caring puzzlement elicited. I don't have many more answers yet. except for one thing I need to give up!


Yes, it must be so old by now, but now that the pressure's off, I really have no excuse not to give up caffeine, as I should have weeks and months ago. The first thing that has to go is the chocolate, which I notice I'd posted about giving up over six weeks ago. I've been eating the odd tiny piece of very dark chocolate every few days, and putting cacao in my smoothies regularly, because it's one of the few things that's appealing to me. However, even aside from the caffeine/theobromine synergy exacerbating the negative effects of caffeine on my systems, the cacao has started to cause the uncomfortable irritation effects that it always has on me eventually--this time around, I was hoping it wouldn't happen, but it has. Not worth the pain! So, no more cacao or chocolate. Still bargaining for my autonomy, so I'd better find something to replace its calories in my intake. 


As for the caffeine pills and caffeinated tea, to be honest, I've been relying on them just to stay awake through the day this past month. They haven't even been impacting my sleep as much as they ordinarily do. But now things have mellowed, and I don't absolutely need to stay awake all day! I'm dreading the withdrawal--just six hours of sleep is leaving me with crushing headaches--so I'd love any advice on how to get through that. I'm thinking a gentle taper would be the smartest thing to do.


Excited to get out more, excited that the only work-work I have now is editing and translating, both of which I love, excited to catch up on rest and friends!