The Countdown has Begun

Seven days. That's all I have left here in my city. It was a shock to my system this morning when I realized it. I have one week left to get everything done; to clean my apartment, finish my taxes (and back taxes...oops), pack away my life for two months, finish researching & solidifying my character, try to submit more of my writing, start to contact management agencies, tie up every loose end (and there are many) & say goodbye to the people who I love most. It's overwhelming.

It's also seven days till I can have Sonny's. YES.

Most of you know how obsessed I am with that mecca of BBQ meat. It will be one of the first things I do when I hit Fort Lauderdale running on April 9th. The last time I was in Florida (some 7 years ago), the first thing my parents did for me after picking me up from the airport was to stop at the Sonny's drive-through. I just can't live without that sweet sauce. My mother mails it to me in packages so I always have some on hand at home. Now, in just one week, I will be able to sit inside the actual restaurant and have that amazing garlic toast and fries. I will have real sweet tea. You just don't find these kinds of things here in the Midwest. It's the only thing that I truly miss about living in the South.

Ummm. Oops. Really didn't mean to go on that little tangent...there was an actual reason that I was mentioning Sonny's. And that is poetry.

Last night was Another Chicago Magazine's April Fool's Day Release Party for Issue 50.2, where my poem Copulation and BBQ has been published. This was the second year in a row that they asked me write something for the event and I am honored that they feel my work is good enough. I always feel so odd and out of place at literary events, like I'm a part of some secret society, but not quite at the point where I understand everything that is going on or fit in in any way. I look at the people who were reading (or published) along with me, and I am in shock. These are people that I truly look up to. They are faculty members at my grad school, teachers at other colleges around the country, editors, playwrights, poets, and cerebral crushes who are brilliant in my mind's eye. So much talent that it makes my head spin. And here I sit among the ingenious chaos with my stupid little poem about meat and sex. I just don't get it.

So seven days. That's it.

Time to get a move on.