17 April 2002 - 10:11 p.m.

The soundtrack for the week is turning out to be Bach: I've been listening to Ian Bostridge sing "Ich habe genug" in the car, WPLN spun one of the Brandenburg concerti tonight, and the Hunt Cantata is now lilting from the kitchen boombox.

I haven't (yet) heard Matt Haimovitz play, but I like what he's doing.

Yesterday, The City Paper printed a interview of Laurie Green, a local animal activist who heads The Southern Alliance for Animal Welfare. I found her answers very intriguing, particularly these three:

What dreams are on your back burner? Going into the ministry.
What can't you go 24 hours without doing?Praying. And having a good cup of coffee - thank goodness for Bongo Java [coffeehouse that opened in East Nashville just last year].
What has changed about the world that you wish hadn't?That the message of Christ has been so perverted by those with a political agenda. Christ did not want the Ten Commandments posted on a wall - He wanted them imprinted on our hearts.

An aside to ak: we hit it with a large, swanky pot of Moroccan mint tea.

It's also been a better-than-average week in the poetry department: two poems drafted (both writing exercises, but still), one submission mailed out (my reward for finishing my returns early - I stayed up late on 14 April, but it was to read Tin House) ...and a letter from The Larcom Review accepting one of my poems. And there was much callooing and callaying.

(Perspective? I received five rejection slips over the past four weeks (and failed to place in three contests, if you want to count those too). I mailed the packet to TLR last July. This, mes amis, is a game for the patient ...

...and speaking of patience, Swoop, I used a Fenway Park stamp on my SASE. [grin])

(It cheered me up immensely to read in Tin House that Billy Collins didn't publish his first book until after he turned 40 - and that he has disavowed his first two books as overly glib and facile. There's hope for me yet...)

One year ago, I added this line to Albert Goldbarth's "Library" "This book is exhorting me to get a life, but I'm not / entirely convinced the author has one either."