Rest, Rejection, Writing and Reading (and Some TV Watching)

August is a month for slowing down and resting, or so a pop-up horoscope tells me. And we should all believe and be guided by our internet astrologers, ammaright? (Honestly, what did I click on for astrology ads to start appearing in my web browser?)

These may be the only crop from my garden this year.

I've spent my morning writing hours this week working on a poem (building and then destroying a sonnet, more or less . . . it's probably gonna take another week). And I reincarnated an old writing group for the month of August -- we'll met once or twice a week at different spots to escape our respective clutter-traps and care-taking responsibilities and concentrate on our work.

I've picked up the play I began last summer, Accountability Partners, as my project to concentrate on for this last month of the break. I need to develop Act II of the verse play, too, but I wanted to work on something I have a good chance of actually finishing before school begins again. It would be nice to start the semester having accomplished, or at least finished, something. (All of the editors of the contests and open reading periods where I submitted my MS at the beginning of the year have been making decisions and sending out form emails en masse. So, August is also a month for rejection.)

I'm spending some time working on class prep, of course. Not at any kind of breakneck pace, but I'm trying to be methodical and deliberate in the way I go about it, so that the transition to class isn't quite so, you know, debilitating to my sense of self and my troop of little crazy blonde people when the semester begins.

Aquarium and  butterfly exhibit:

This lady was hiding in a stairwell.

And speaking of crazy little blonde people, I plan on finally taking them to the beach (they've spent a lot of time at pools this summer, but not the ocean, sadly) and maybe some hiking (loaded with tick repellent, because Lyme's is alive and well on Long Island) and also some movies . . . because my kids and I love movies. Also, Little Miss Talkalot needs braces, so there will be an orthodontist appointment in there somewhere.

Also also, I took away their electronic devices for the month of July and it was glorious. So then I took away my own (kind of) in August. No social media for me! (This blog excepted, which isn't terribly social anyway.)

What I just finished reading: Oliver Sack's biography, On the Move.

What I'm reading: Ruth Irupè Sanabria's Beasts Behave in Foreign Land and Derek Walcott's The Prodigal.

What I just finished watching: The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu and Glow on Netflix. (They are both amazing for very different reasons.)

What I'm watching now: Dragons. (Game of Thrones on Sundays. Duh.)