Some Grumpy and Abbreviated Thoughts on Mortality and Community

Since when did I feel so tired all the time? Like even coffee makes me tired lately. Since when did the white hairs on my head poke out funny directions and increase their numbers exponentially? And I don’t care about that urban legend/wive’s tale or whatever about more growing in their place and I just pull them out. Yes, the children of the eighties are growing old. Since when did that start happening? Since when did I start worrying that since I’m past thirty and I can’t seem to get it together as far as financial responsibility and stable life course that I am never going to have a baby and never be a truly successful and productive member of society? Since when was the world falling apart? Like I mean the upcoming presidential elections and the Middle East and the worldwide economic crisis and Japan and AIDS is still around people and . . . Since always, right?

From the Eastern Frontier

As someone who has put a considerable amount of energy into “writing” in the past half decade or so, going so far as to take classes, attend workshops, get an M.F.A., submit to things, and apply to things, I’ve been aware of the phenomenon of the writer’s residency and been rejected from a handful of them, from sea to shining sea. So it felt like a miracle, when this past spring, I heard I’d finally been accepted. I’m happy to say hello from my first residency, hello from Norton Island. Where is that, you ask? I don’t really know.