38 is the New . . . Nope. It's Old. My Knees Creak, Y'all.

One week of school completed, and I'm all sorts of in-the-weeds again. Not panicking especially yet, but that's because I'm deluding myself into thinking I have control by paying attention to my little list-making phone app (Wunderlist) and occasionally running (three times last week!) and then also kind-of sort-of staying on top of the laundry situation in my household.

Yesterday I turned 38. I don't think this is especially significant except that it means I'm still eligible to have my manuscript rejected for the Yale Younger Poets Prize, because under 40 is still considered "younger," and I haven't had a book published yet. Also, they haven't published anything that looks or sounds remotely like my own work in  . . . maybe forever? . . . and yet I'll probably continue to send my MS in each year until I get the book published by someone else or I turn 40. 

I really, really hope it's not the latter, but  . . . you know.

OHMYGODCOFFEEISSOGOOD.

Sorry. Had a rough night with the Vampire Toddler, whose fangs have been torturing her somewhat fierce for the past two weeks. Eventually I tried the let-her-cry approach for about thirty seconds, the space it took for me to leave her room and walk down the stairs, where I found my husband . . . who looked at me pitifully and said, "but she sounds so unhappy!"

The sound that was issuing from upstairs was more banshee-like than baby, so I'm going to assume he was still half-asleep. "Unhappy" doesn't quite describe the vitriolic demon-wail of Vampire Toddler being left to cry it out in her crib.

I went back upstairs and picked up V.T., who sniffed once and then promptly fell asleep on my shoulder. After that she stayed asleep. 

A.P. and I have a reading in Manhattan lined up for January -- at the Pen Parentis Literary Salon, a group of writers-who-are-also-parents. Some pretty cool writers, mostly fiction, have read there before, so it's kind of unusual and an honor that we poet-types are being showcased at all. 

In the meantime, I'm gearing up to send out my MS to another round of publishers and book contests. And by "gearing up" I mean "thinking about doing it and putting it off until some really inconvenient moment, like when I'm supposed to grade 30 papers for a 9:30 a.m. class."