Ohio, here I come!

Since I was able to bring Ben and Jonah down to Georgia for some long stretches during the summer, it's been a good long while since I've spent a week up in Ohio visiting them. Tomorrow morning, I'll begin my trek up I-75 and stay at my dad's until Labor Day. Of course, there's like 60-80% chance of thunderstorms the entire trip tomorrow. (And I completely and utterly and unequivocally loathe driving in the rain. One word: Hydroplane.)

I always love spending time with the boys, but it means I won't see Reese, Will and Tammy for 10 days. That's a long time, especially since I've gotten used to Tammy hanging around the house with Will and I while she's been looking for a new job.

News flash: Tammy got a job offer yesterday. Hooray!

We were seriously looking at alternative options for keeping ourselves afloat, including selling our books, our CDs, our DVDs, our blood, our Pez dispensers, our rubberbands, our alphabet magnets, etc. Maybe even living out of my Kia Spectra. Talk about a cramped lifestyle.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't that bad, but we are glad for the jobby-job. I think. It would still be super cool if we somehow won the lottery or had a very rich person decide to give us tons of money to hang around the house all day and watch Noggin with Will while he learns to crawl and walk and such. (Any very rich people out there?!?)

*****

News flash #2: Tammy received her contributor copies of No Glass Allowed (verve bath press), her second chapbook (and first solo collection) of poetry, in the mail yesterday!!!!

(A lot of good stuff happened yesterday for the Brewer household, especially Tammy.)

So, about her chapbook: Amanda Oaks published the collection. The first run is limited to 50 copies--so talk about an Act Now offer. If you want to be a part of history and own a very rare first edition of Tammy Foster Brewer's first solo collection of poetry, you'd better act now, because copies are already flying off the shelves. Literally, I think more than half the print run is already accounted for.

You want a copy? You want to read more details? Then, click here, my friend.

Here's one of my favorite poems in the collection:

The Baptism of a Bicycle

I ask him about forgiveness.
He tells me of the rain
and how he needs to mow
the lawn. Where I live

there is a drought. Grass
breaks beneath each step
towards my mother's
mailbox. An empty
womb. An invisible

dog leaves footprints
on the sidewalk. When the cement
was wet, it was his father who
taught him how

to kiss. His childhood,
like the removal of foreskin.
A formality. To forgive

a flat tire. Sometimes legs
are not enough. To pedal
naked beside guilt until
the water's edge. Before,

it was a feeling
of swallowing buildings,
an attempt to drown
metal. Now, it is

a love affair with air
planes. And I am barefoot

on dry land. Forgiveness,
he says, but first
you have to wait
for the flood.

*****

Btw, Amanda Oaks makes the best chapbooks over at verve bath press. She really puts a lot of time and effort into each book. For instance, she actually individually sewed a heart on to the front cover of each copy of No Glass Allowed. Amanda is cool like that.

*****

My personal update for the last few days: A whole lot of working. I guess I've put in about 40 hours of database and coding work in the past 3 days. That's like more than 13 hours a day. That's like a lot. But the hope (the eternal hope) is that things will eventually slow down.

(Again, any very rich people out there?!? Or winning lottery tickets?!?)